H2H: Napoli vs AC Milan – Prediction (Serie A

H2H: Napoli vs AC Milan – Comparison.

Napoli’s Dries Mertens is a prime threat, seeing half of his last six SA home goals open the scoring inside the first 15 minutes. The great Zlatan Ibrahimović accounts for three of Milan’s last four SA away openers to arrive inside the first 20 minutes of play. He has averaged 1.0 first-half goals across the Rossoneri’s last six away league victories. The two ‘players to watch’ have notched a combined total of 155 SA goals for their respective current clubs, with over a quarter (28.39%) proving decisive in victory.

Napoli Insights.

Without a draw in 16 competitive games (W10, L6), Napoli are narrow favourites here, despite trailing AC Milan by three points. They have won five (L1) of their last six Serie A (SA) home matches, with the ‘Rossoneri’ winning the second half with a clean sheet in four of those five victories. A significant 13 of the last 15 games in Napoli’s current streak of competitive fixtures won/lost have favoured the opening scorers. Within that sequence, the same can be said about ten of Napoli’s last 11 league matches, and the average win/loss margin across those 11 games stands at 2.27 goals.

AC Milan Insights.

AC Milan remain unbeaten in the league (home/away) since the end of last season’s COVID-enforced hiatus (W14, D5). Eleven of those wins came via a 2+ goal margin, while eight of the last nine wins therein saw Milan lead at HT by one goal. In turn, Milan boast an impressive 73.33% rate of HT/FT doubles across their last 15 SA wins. The visitors are on a first run of five SA away wins since 2005, and the streak was halted on that occasion via a 2-1 defeat. In relation to their high rate of HT/FT wins, Milan have opened the scoring inside 20 minutes on four occasions during their current five-game run of SA away wins.