Salernitana vs Milan

Stadio Arechi is the venue as rock-bottom Salernitana and third-placed AC Milan trade tackles in a lopsided Serie A encounter.

Filippo Inzaghi’s skin is a tough place to be these days after Salernitana spurned a narrow halftime lead in a 4-1 demolition at the hands of Atalanta earlier this week, succumbing to a third consecutive Serie A defeat. With just eight points from 16 matches, the hosts commence this round nailed to the bottom of the standings, albeit only five points adrift of safety, perhaps giving the home support a reason to hope they could avoid relegation after another terrible start. Milan’s upcoming visit doesn’t bode well, though, with ‘I Granata’ only winning once in their eight previous H2Hs (D2, L5). Inzaghi’s best chance of dodging another catastrophe is to shore up his side’s defensive woes after Salernitana failed to keep a clean sheet across their last 19 league outings.

On the other hand, the 18-year-old prodigy Jan-Carlo Simic scored on his Serie A debut as Milan thumped Monza 3-0 at home last weekend, taking advantage of Juventus’ draw at Genoa to close the gap to the Serie A runners-up to five points. But with table-topping Inter Milan nine points clear, any potential slip-up here could rule ‘I Rossoneri’ out of the Scudetto picture at the halfway point of the 2023/24 campaign. Venturing outside San Siro has proved problematic for Stefano Pioli’s team lately as they take this trip seeking their first top-flight win on the road since a narrow 1-0 triumph at promoted Genoa in early October. Since then, they played out back-to-back 2-2 draws at Napoli and Lecce before falling to a late 3-2  loss at Atalanta on their most recent Serie A travel.