Next Saturday, 20th of December 2014, two Italian major powerhouses, AS Roma and AC Milan, will measure forces at the emblematic Stadio Olimpico for round 16 of Serie A, on a match of the utmost importance for the home side, who wants to keep piling on the pressure on the league leaders, Juventus, who failed to snatch the three points for the second week in a row after drawing with Sampdoria last Sunday.

After being eliminated from the UEFA Champions League last week, AS Roma managed to quickly bounce back from that sour home defeat against Manchester City and grabbed an excellent win at Luigi Ferraris over a super strong Genoa that have been delighting both the pundits and the media so far this season. Rudi Garcia rallied his troops after two somewhat negative results and secured the vital three points that help Roma to put some extra pressure on the league leaders, Juventus, who failed to get anything better than a draw from their clash against the other Genoa based team, Sampdoria.

AS Roma are surely one of the best teams at Serie A and probably one of the most interesting of European football these days, but their modest stint at the UEFA Champions League this season created some unnecessary and pointless commotion on the team’s performances and potential to compete with the other big dogs of the Old Continent. Rudi Garcia managed to rise above all criticism  and kept doing what he knows best at the helm of the Lupi, who will certainly have one of the most difficult matches of the season when they meet AC Milan next Saturday. For that particular match, the French manager will probably still not be able to rely on the contribution of Balzaretti and Castan, who remain sidelined due to injury.

As for AC Milan, the former European champions started the season at full speed but for some reason they lost some of that initial stamina as the matches went by. After being defeated at Genoa two weeks ago, Filippo Inzaghi’s boys put up an excellent and motivating win over an inconsistent Napoli side last weekend and reached their opponents at the Serie A table.

For the important Stadio Olimpico’s match, the former Italian International is not yet certain if he will be able to count on the services of Niang, Alex and Abate, who are still recovering from their respective injuries.

Next Saturday’s match will definitely be a very close one, but because they are playing at home in front of their enthusiastic supporters, AS Roma enjoys from a slight favouritism.

Roma

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - WLDWD

AC Milan

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - WLWDD

Possible Line-ups

Roma (4-3-3) - De Sanctis - Maicon - Torosidis - Astori - Holebas - Keita - Pjanic - Nainggolan - Gervinho - Florenzi - Ljajic

AC Milan (4-3-3) - Diego Lopez - Bonera - Rami - Mexes - Armero - Andrea Poli - De Jong - Montolivo - Keisuke Honda - Bonaventura - Jeremy Menez

Prediction

Roma 2 AC Milan 1