AC Milan vs Bologna prediction: ITALY: Serie A betting tips on match 2024-01-26 19:45.
AC Milan’s match against Udinese last weekend made headlines for all the wrong reasons when the game was briefly suspended after some Udinese fans hurled racist abuse at Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan. After the game resumed, perhaps fittingly given what had transpired earlier, Milan scored twice late on to win 3-2 to claim their fourth consecutive Serie A victory.
They still trail Juventus and Inter Milan by seven and six points respectively, having played one game more than Inter, but are on their own in third place having gone unbeaten across six league games (W5, D1). They’ve been especially impeccable at home, winning their last five Serie A games and conceding only twice. Such defensive excellence has also been prevalent in their recent history against Bologna, underlined by three straight clean sheets (W2, D1) in home H2Hs.
As Bologna haven’t beaten Milan anywhere since January 2016 (D3, L13), a trip to the San Siro isn’t exactly the ideal place to go after winning none of their last three league games (D1, L2). Still, they’re occupying a healthy top-half position courtesy of some strong pre-Christmas results and their bid to qualify for Europe therefore remains on track.
Those ambitions may be dampened unless they can improve their form on the road as they’ve won just one league away fixture this term (D6, L3) including two straight defeats in games that produced exactly three goals. Their aforementioned dreadful record against Milan suggests they could be on their way to three consecutive top-flight away defeats for the first time since February 2022.
Key battle: After receiving support from all over the world following events in Udine, Maignan should expect a more comfortable time in Milan, particularly as he has kept three clean sheets from four outings against Bologna. Aiming to stop him adding to that tally, Bologna’s Lewis Ferguson has opened the scoring with all four of his league goals this term.
Hot stat: Only Juventus have bettered Bologna’s record of avoiding defeat in 75% of Serie A matches in which they started as outsiders this season (W1, D5, L2).