Next Saturday, 24th of January 2015, the erratic AC Milan will travel to Rome to measure forces with Lazio at Stadio Olimpico for round 20 of the Italian Serie A, on a match that both sides want to win in order to quickly forget last weekend’s home upsets against Atalanta and Napoli respectively.

The former European champions, AC Milan, are definitely going through a very complicated period at Serie A as they failed to win their last four clashes. Last weekend’s painful home defeat against a relegation threatened Atalanta didn’t allow the Rossoneri to close the gap to the top five table spots that grant European football next season and, at the same time, allowed their eternal rivals Inter Milan to reach them on the eighth place of the table. AC Milan had an apparent control of the respective match with a staggering percentage of ball possession (69%) and several goal attempts that were constantly frustrated by Atalanta’s goalie Marco Sportiello.

Things haven’t been easy for AC Milan’s head coach, the former Italian sharpshooter Filippo Inzaghi, that needs to put up something very special in order to motivate his team to return to wins at Serie A as soon as possible. The upcoming match against Lazio will definitely be far from easy but the Rossoneri are certainly hoping to, at least, replicate their recent performance at Stadio Olimpico when they grant a valuable draw against AS Roma last December. For that particular clash, Inzaghi will probably still not be able to rely on the services of the Colombian defender Cristian Zapata, who is currently sidelined due to injury.

As for Lazio, the capital city team are having a very good season so far and the work that Stefano Pioli has been carrying out is somewhat impressive. Despite their recent good run (Lazio were undefeated since last November) the Italian powerhouses failed to secure the points last weekend when they entertained Napoli at Stadio Olimpico. A lonely goal from the Argentinean sharpshooter Gonzalo Higuain early in the match dictated Lazio’s sixth defeat of the season and allowed Sampdoria to steal them the fourth place of the Serie A table.

Lazio are a tough bone to chew when playing at home but AC Milan tend to be fairly dangerous when playing away and, for both these reasons, it is hard to name any favourites for the upcoming clash that might well end up in draw.

Lazio

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - LWDWD

AC Milan

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - LWDLW

Possible Line-ups

Lazio (4-3-3) - Marchetti - Basta - Cavanda - Cana - Radu - Ledesma - Biglia - Parolo - Mauri - Djordjevic - Anderson

AC Milan (4-3-3) - Diego Lopez - Rami - Mexes - Bonera - Abate - Andrea Poli - De Jong - Montolivo - Cerci - El Shaarawy - Jeremy Menez

Prediction

Lazio 1 AC Milan 1