Serie A preview: Inter vs. AC Milan – Team news, opposition insight, stats and prediction

Inter and AC Milan will contest the first Derby della Madonnina of the 2024-25 season at San Siro on Sunday night, and there is strong pressure on the red half of the city to deliver.

Milan have not had a good start to the season under their new head coach Paulo Fonseca, with just one win coming in the first five games and all the momentum from the 4-0 win over Venezia last weekend undone by a 3-1 midweek defeat to Liverpool that could have been a bigger margin.

Numerous reliable sources are actually suggesting that a positive result is needed in the derby for Fonseca to keep his job, and in his pre-match press conference, the manager made it clear that he’s confident after three good days of training.

Game date: Sunday, September 22
Kick-off time: 20:45 (CEST)
Venue: San Siro
Referee: Maurizio Mariani (VAR: Di Paolo)

Team news

As mentioned, there is a lot riding on this particular game for Fonseca so he needs to get the selection decisions right, otherwise it might well be the last starting line-up he names as Milan boss.

The injury problems are already known: Ismael Bennacer is out until 2025 after undergoing a calf operation, Marco Sportiello is absent due to a hand injury and Alessandro Florenzi will be missing after knee surgery. Furthermore, Davide Calabria picked up a late injury and will miss out, while Malick Thiaw is a doubt due to an ankle sprain.

According to the latest reports, Fonseca tested a 4-4-2 formation in training with Tammy Abraham and Alvaro Morata starting up front. Both have done well at the start of this season, especially the Englishman, and one can understand why the manager wants them both from the first minute.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek will be sent to the bench as a result, with Youssouf Fofana and Tijjani Reijnders occupying the spots in the centre of the park. Christian Pulisic and Rafael Leao, meanwhile, will keep their spots on the wings but will be slightly more defensive-minded given the formation change.

At the back, it appears Matteo Gabbia has won the battle against Strahinja Pavlovic and will thus start alongside Fikayo Tomori. Though not ‘confirmed’ until this evening, this was more or less expected as the Serbian played from start to finish against both Venezia and Liverpool.

Obviously, given the injury of Calabria, Emerson Royal will be the starting right-back and he certainly has a point to prove. Albeit okay against Venezia, he failed to impress off the bench against Liverpool and you could even argue that he’s yet to have a proper impact for Milan, unless you are counting negative ones.

Predicted Milan XI (4-4-2): Maignan; Emerson, Gabbia, Tomori, Theo Hernandez; Pulisic, Fofana, Reijnders, Leao; Morata, Abraham.

The opponents

Inter won the league at a canter last season under Simone Inzaghi and they came into the new campaign as the big favourites to defend their title, which also meant that only a few tweaks were needed in the summer window.

Two free signings arrived in Mehdi Taremi (from Porto) and Piotr Zielinski (from Napoli), while Josep Martinez (€13.5m from Genoa) and Tomas Palacios (€6.5m from Independiente Rivadavia) were the only paid-for signings.

However, it is worth noting that Inter did have to pay the obligations to buy for Davide Frattesi, Carlos Augusto and Marko Arnautovic which totalled €50m.

In terms of results, the Nerazzurri have been surprisingly up and down to begin the new campaign. A 2-2 draw against Genoa in round one was followed by 2-0 and 4-0 home wins against Lecce and Atalanta respectively, then a 1-1 draw away at Monza preceded a very impressive 0-0 draw against Manchester City in the Champions League.

Inzaghi has just one injury issue to worry about and that is right wing-back Tajon Buchanan who is expected to be out for at least another fortnight after a broken tibia.

There were some doubts about whether Federico Dimarco might miss the fixture given he has been out since the international break and missed the City game, yet he is back in training and should take Augusto’s spot.

As per the latest reports, Yann Sommer will be in goal for Inter with a three-man defence of Benjamin Pavard, Francesco Acerbi and Alessandro Bastoni ahead of him, plus Denzel Dumfries and Dimarco as wing-backs.

The trio in midfield is likely to consist of Hakan Calhanoglu playing deeper between Nicolo Barella on the right and Henrikh Mkhitaryan on the left. Lautaro Martinez and Marcus Thuram are almost certain to be the front two.

Predicted Inter XI (3-5-2): Sommer; Pavard, Acerbi, Bastoni; Dumfries, Barella, Calhanoglu, Mkhitaryan, Dimarco; Lautaro, Thuram.

Head to head

AC Milan have faced their city rivals Inter 223 times in their just under 125-year history across all competitions, which is the second-most they have faced any side (Juventus, on 225 games, lead the list). The record is 71 wins, 67 draws and 85 defeats, a win rate of 31.8%.

It has been a painful recent streak for the Rossoneri too as they have lost six derbies in a row, with the last victory coming in the first half of the 2022-23 season as the defending Serie A champions.

Since then, Inter have emerged victorious every time and have outscored Milan 14-2 in the process, which shows just how one-sided the fixture has become in the past couple of seasons.

The 2023-24 season might have been the worst though, as a 5-1 hammering from the Nerazzurri was followed up by a 2-1 defeat in Milan’s ‘home’ game which ended up being the result that allowed the blue half of the city to celebrate their 20th Scudetto.

Key facts and stats

➤ Inter have won the last six Milan derbies in all competitions by an aggregate score of 14-2, a record for consecutive wins for the Nerazzurri against the Rossoneri. Overall, neither team has ever achieved seven straight wins in the history of the Derby della Madonnina in all competitions (Milan also 6 between 1911-1913 and 1946-1948).

➤ The first Milan Derby of the season is being played on one of the opening five matchdays for the fifth time in the last six seasons, as many times as across the previous 46 Serie A campaigns played in by both teams. Milan are unbeaten in each of the last seven derbies played on matchday 5 (W5 D2), the last of which came in 2022/23 (3-2 in September 2022).

➤ Inter have won nine of their last 14 games against Milan in Serie A (D2 L3). In the same period (since 2017/18), only against Udinese (10) and Hellas Verona (10) have the Nerazzurri achieved more wins, and only against Genoa (31) and Sampdoria (30) have they scored more goals than versus the Rossoneri (29) in the top-flight.

➤ Milan have won as few as five points from their opening four Serie A games of a season for the first time since 2018/19 (W1 D2 L1 in both), but they haven’t failed to pick up more than five points after five games of a campaign since 2013-14 under Massimiliano Allegri (W1 D2 L2).

➤ Inter have drawn four of their last six Serie A games (W2), as many draws as they had across their previous 28 matches in the competition (W23 D4 L1).

➤ Inter and Milan rank in the top three teams in Serie A this season for goals scored (both 9, level with Napoli), possession (64.5% for Bologna, 60.5% for the Nerazzurri, 59.2% for the Rossoneri), passing accuracy (90.2% for Juventus, 90.1% for Fonseca’s team and 89.3% for Inzaghi’s team) and build-up attacks (21 for Milan, 17 for Juventus and 13 for Inter).

➤ Milan are the team that have had the most different players score in this Serie A season with eight of their nine total goals scored by different players (Napoli – 6, Inter and Juventus – 5).

➤ Among the coaches to have managed more than five Derby della Madonnina matches across all
competitions, only Árpád Weisz (67%, 8/12) boasts a higher win-rate than Simone Inzaghi (64%, 7/11). Furthermore, in the event of a victory, the Inter coach would join Helenio Herrera and Árpád Weisz in 2nd place for managers with the most wins in the history of the Milanese derby, with eight wins across all competitions and behind only Carlo Ancelotti (10).

➤ Marcus Thuram has scored in both of his Serie A appearances against Milan: the only two players to find the net in each of their first three Derby della Madonnina league appearances for Inter in the three points for a win era are Ronaldo (between 1997 and 1998) and Romelu Lukaku (between 2019 and 2020).

➤ Only against Hellas Verona and Roma (6 against both) has Rafael Leão been directly involved in more goals than versus Inter in Serie A (5 – 3G, 2A). Furthermore, the only match in which the Portuguese striker has been directly involved in at least three goals in the ‘big 10’ European leagues was a derby against the Nerazzurri played on matchday five in 2022-23.

Ones to watch

Taking the formation change into consideration, Milan fans will want to keep a close eye on Abraham and Morata. The Englishman has shown off his skills, as well as intelligent movement, while the Spaniard has the fighting spirit and leadership that this fixture requires.

In addition to the attacking duo, eyes must be on Leao as the winger struggled to have a positive impact on the game against Liverpool. He ended up hitting the post in injury time but prior to that, Milan could have used his help a lot more.

As for Inter, Hakan Calhanoglu always seems to do something in the derby and with two strikers, Milan might have a better chance of stopping him. Nevertheless, on set pieces, the Rossoneri must be very careful (as we saw against Liverpool).

Marcus Thuram is another player who certainly has enjoyed the derby since joining the Nerazzurri. After bullying Malick Thiaw last season, he will be looking to damage the Rossoneri defence again and it remains to be seen if he will be successful.

Prediction

It feels deflating to realistically not be able to even optimistically predict a Milan win in such a big game like the derby, but the mood surrounding the team is borderline toxic and the strength of the opponent has to be taken into consideration, sadly.

Inter 2-0 Milan