TORINO v AC MILAN: MATCH PREVIEW

An intense and tiring October comes to end with a historically tough away trip to Turin. Against the Granata on their home patch, we have only won once in our last nine visits (7-0 on 12 May 2021), highlighting the difficulty this match brings. The Rossoneri are in search of their fifth straight league win, before the final Champions League group game midweek.

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After their positive trip to Zagreb, the group had a day's rest on Wednesday and went back to work in Carnago on Thursday afternoon, having three full days to prepare for the game. Regarding the squad, Coach Pioli is likely to bring back into contention those players absent from the trip to Croatia: Adli, Bakayoko, Vranckx and Thiaw, as well as Tomori, who was suspended. Sergiño Dest is back available, after being forced off at half-time against Monza. Maignan, Calabria, Florenzi, Saelemaekers are Ibra will all definitely be missing though, with only one doubt: Theo Hernández.  

"The game brings up many difficulties," Coach Pioli said in Saturday's press conference. "Torino have various tactical setups and coming up against teams led by Jurić is always an exciting prospect, because he's a Coach that forces you to find different solutions. We'll need to show our quality and character because they will pressure us, but we know how to handle these situations, so I'm expecting a strong performance."

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The home side will have to do without Aina, who has a thigh muscle issue, and Sanabria, who has had a recurrence of a calf injury. Also out, due to fatigue, is the young Turkish player, Ilkhan. Just as AC Milan, the Granata also have only one question mark, the Pole, Linetty. After scraping only one point from their last five games (against Inter, Sassuolo, Napoli, Empoli and Juventus), Torino got back to winning ways in the league last Sunday at the Dacia Arena against Udinese, courtesy of goals from Aina, former AC Milan forward Pellegri, and Granata captain Ricardo Rodríguez. Therefore, Jurić's side will be looking for back-to-back wins in front of a packed, sell-out home crowd. 

On the eve of the game, the Head Coach said: "AC Milan are in good shape, they've been playing together for a while now: they are strong and have many options, they can score in many different ways. Pioli has a great connection with his players and finds answers; he has knowledge, I like him a lot. As in every game, we want to give a performance and to try and win the game".

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36-year old Rosario Abisso will be in charge of the game against Torino. He will be assisted by Di Vuolo and Yoshikawa, with the Fourth Official named as Maresca; VAR will be controlled by Aureliano with Muto as his assistant. Abisso has refereed eight games involving AC Milan (six wins, one draw and one defeat), with the last one almost two years ago in our 2-0 win over Cagliari on 18 January 2021, decided by a Zlatan Ibrahimović brace. Instead, his most recent game with Torino came in their thrilling 4-4 draw with Atalanta on 27 April 2022. 

Matchday 12 in Serie A has already seen three Saturday games concluded: Napoli 4-0 Sassuolo, Lecce 0-1 Juventus and Inter 3-0 Sampdoria. Meanwhile, Sunday opened up with Empoli 0-2 Atalanta, and continues with two games at 15:00 CET: Cremonese v Udinese and Spezia v Fiorentina. Then, Lazio face Salernitana at 18:00 CET and to end the day, Torino v AC Milan at 20:45 CET. Tomorrow evening at 18:45 CET Hellas Verona take on Roma and at 20:45 CET, there's Monza v Bologna. 

Here the Serie A table: Napoli* 32; Atalanta* 27; AC Milan 26; Lazio and Inter* 24; Roma and Juventus* 22; Udinese 21; Sassuolo* 15; Torino 14; Salernitana 13; Empoli* 11; Bologna, Fiorentina and Monza 10; Spezia 9; Lecce* 8; Sampdoria* 6; Hellas Verona 5; Cremonese 4. (* = played one game more)

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