Next Saturday, 10th of January 2015, a hurt-in-their-pride AC Milan will travel to the beautiful city of Turin to measure forces with Torino at Stadio Olimpico for round 18 of the Italian Serie A, on a match of the utmost importance for the Rossoneri who sucumbed at the hands of the valiant Sassuolo side on the last round of the tournament.

AC Milan have certainly got distracted with their win over the all-powerful Real Madrid at the Dubai Football Challenge last week and ended up by being surprised at home by a mighty Sassuolo, who once again proved that they are far from being pushovers. The Rossoneri have, however, started the match at a good pace thanks to an early goal by Andrea Poli. Nevertheless, the visitors went to San Siro hoping to cause a major upset to the Italian powerhouses and they did precisely so. On the 28th minute, Berardi assisted Sansone for the equalizer and, to make things worst for AC Milan, the Italian international Simone Zaza netted in a splendid goal after a corner by Berardi on the 67th minute, thus sealing the visitors’ win.

The former European champions have been fairly inconsistent so far this season and their young manager, Filippo Inzaghi, who arrived this Summer at the team, knows that he still has a Herculean task ahead of him in order to restore AC Milan’s past glory.

For the predictably complicated clash against Torino, Inzaghi will probably still not be able to count on the services of the Japanese international Honda and on Van Ginkel and Mexes, all currently sidelined due to injury.

As for Torino, they have been fairly inconsistent so far this season and such inconsistency has sunk them to the 14th place of the Serie A table, six points above the relegation zone. After an impressive home win against Genoa before the festive period, Torino failed to get anything better than a goalless draw from their match against Chievo last Tuesday.

For the upcoming clash against the Rossoneri, Torino’s manager, Giampiero Ventura, will probably have all his players at disposal, since there aren’t any names on the team’s injury list.

Despite their inconsistency, Torino are on a five match row without a single defeat and they will certainly create plenty of difficulties to AC Milan. Although the visitors may have a slight favouritism, it will surely be a very even match that will be decided in the little details.

Torino

Stats: W-2 L-0 D-3

Recent Form - DWDWD

AC Milan

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - LWDWL

Possible Line-ups

Torino (3-4-1-2) - Padelli - Maksimovic - Glik - Silva - Darmian - Vives - Farnerud - Molinaro - Gazzi - Martinez - Quagliarella

AC Milan (4-3-3) - Diego Lopez - Rami - Zapata - Alex - De Sciglio - Andrea Poli - Muntari - Montolivo - Cerci - El Shaarawy - Jeremy Menez

Prediction

Torino 1 AC Milan 1