We look ahead to this Champions League Group F clash with our AC Milan vs Paris Saint-Germain prediction and preview.
AC Milan vs Paris Saint-Germain: The Quick Hits
- Paris Saint-Germain are the favourites (41.6%) to pick up an away victory at San Siro against AC Milan (32.3%), according to the Opta supercomputer.
- Milan have failed to score in their last five UEFA Champions League matches, their longest run without a goal in their European club competition history.
- Having won just two of their first 20 meetings with Italian sides in all competitions (9 draws, 9 defeats), PSG have now won their last four against Serie A opponents.
Match Preview
Group F leaders Paris Saint-Germain head to San Siro on Tuesday looking to land another blow to Milan’s hopes of progressing through to the Champions League’s knockout stages.
Luis Enrique’s men were thumped 4-1 away at Newcastle United on Matchday 2, but comprehensive home victories over Borussia Dortmund and Milan at the Parc des Princes either side of that heavy defeat mean PSG hold a two-point lead at Group F’s summit.
The Rossoneri, meanwhile, are yet to win a match, or even score a goal, in this season’s Champions League, propping up Group F despite having the fifth-highest number of shots (50) in the whole competition. They are one of only two teams yet to score in the group stage, along with Benfica.
They have also failed to find the net in their last two Champions League home games, losing to rivals Inter Milan in last season’s semi-final and drawing 0-0 with Newcastle in their opening game of this season’s group stage. They have never previously failed to score in three consecutive home games in the Champions League.
PSG are the top scorers in Group F with six, three of which have been assisted by Warren Zaïre-Emery. The 17-year-old is one of the hottest prospects in European football, reportedly on the verge of a call-up to the senior France squad having produced more Champions League assists than any other player this season. He is the first player to provide three assists in the competition before turning 18.
Zaïre-Emery has not been the only creative outlet for the Parisians, with Achraf Hakimi playing 16 line-breaking passes to Ousmane Dembélé in the Champions League this season, the most from one PSG player to a teammate. Five of those 16 line-breaking passes have led to a shot, which is also the most between teammates for the French side.
While PSG’s key attacking options are firing in the Champions League, Milan’s are yet to have the same influence, with talented winger Rafael Leão struggling to make an impact despite attempting more take-ons following a ball carry (moving five or more metres with the ball) than any other player in this season’s competition (15). It has been a frustratingly below-par campaign for the Portugal international, who has scored just three goals in all competitions after netting 16 last term.
Leao’s form matches that of his team, with Stefano Pioli’s men winless in four and with three defeats over that span, the latest of which came on Saturday at home to a Udinese side who had gone their first 10 league games of the season without a victory. The Rossoneri’s Champions League chances are in serious question, and they are already six points behind leaders and city rivals Inter at the top of Serie A.
Injuries have been a factor and could continue to be for a while yet, with the likes of Pierre Kalulu, Simon Kjaer, and Ismael Bennacer all unavailable for Tuesday’s game. Théo Hernández and Christian Pulisic were both absent for the Udinese defeat, though the team is reportedly optimistic the pair will return for kick-off against PSG, while Samuel Chukwueze could also feature having missed the last four games with a hamstring injury.
PSG outclassed Montpellier on Friday in Ligue 1 as they eased to a 3-0 victory, the fifth game in a row they have netted three goals, with the added boost of Marquinhos returning from a knock that kept him out of the lineup in the topsy-turvy 3-2 win over Brest the previous weekend.
That positive was tempered by the news that Danilo Pereira had suffered a hamstring injury before the Montpellier game, and he will be absent for Tuesday, as well as Nuno Mendes, Presnel Kimpembe and Marco Asensio. Lucas Hernández should return at left-back, potentially playing against his Milan counterpart and brother Théo.
AC Milan vs Paris Saint-Germain Head-to-Head
Milan’s 3-0 loss in the reverse fixture at the Parc des Princes was their first ever defeat against PSG, having won two and drawn two of their first four meetings.
Kylian Mbappé put the hosts ahead with 32 minutes gone, before Randal Kolo Muani and Lee Kang-in made the points safe with second-half goals to secure a much-needed win in response to the humiliating 4-1 defeat at Newcastle.
That result at San Siro on MD 3 was an outlier from the teams’ previous clashes in that Milan blanked against PSG for the first time, having netted in all four of the meetings across the 1994-95 and 2000-01 campaigns when the teams met in the group stage and semi-finals respectively.
Recent Form
PSG have lost their last two away games in the Champions League (2-0 v Bayern Munich and 4-1 v Newcastle). The last time they lost three in a row away from home in the competition was between December 2017 and September 2018.
The Ligue 1 champions are on an incredible scoring streak, finding the back of the net in their last 47 group-stage matches in the Champions League, the longest run in the competition’s history. They last blanked against Real Madrid in 2015, when Laurent Blanc was in charge.
Milan have failed to score in three of their last four matches having previously done so in just two of their opening 10 games of the season. Olivier Giroud is their top scorer in all competitions, netting six times in 13 matches at the age of 37.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Tuesday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
AC Milan vs Paris Saint-Germain Prediction
PSG head to San Siro as slight favourites, given a 41.6% chance of continuing to top Group F with another three points, according to the Opta supercomputer.
Milan are in desperate need of a victory and the supercomputer believes they have a decent probability of getting exactly that, winning 32.3% of the 10,000 simulations conducted ahead of MD 4. A point wouldn’t be ideal for either, though would probably suit PSG more than their hosts, and the draw is rated at a 26.1% likelihood.
Despite the Rossoneri getting to the semi-finals last season and PSG crashing out at the round-of-16 stage, the French side are considered the more likely to triumph in this campaign’s competition. Milan reach the last four again in only 2.4% of supercomputer simulations, while they get out of the group just 16.7% of the time. PSG, meanwhile, are given a 78.4% chance of progressing to the knockout phase, though they are not rated as one of the favourites to win the entire competition, lifting the trophy in just 2.6% of simulations.
AC Milan vs Paris Saint-Germain
AC Milan: Mike Maignan, Marco Sportiello, Antonio Mirante, Davide Calabria, Theo Hernández, Pierre Kalulu, Fikayo Tomori, Simon Kjær, Malick Thiaw, Mattia Caldara, Alessandro Florenzi, Yacine Adli, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Tijjani Reijnders, Tommaso Pobega, Rade Krunić, Yunus Musah, Olivier Giroud, Rafael Leão, Christian Pulisic, Luka Jović, Noah Okafor, Samuel Chukwueze.
Head Coach: Stefano Pioli
Paris Saint-Germain: Keylor Navas, Alexandre Letellier, Arnau Tenas, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Achraf Hakimi, Presnel Kimpembe, Marquinhos, Lucas Hernández, Nuno Mendes, Nordi Mukiele, Milan Škriniar, Manuel Ugarte, Fabián Ruiz, Danilo, Vitinha, Kang-in Lee, Carlos Soler, Warren Zaïre-Emery, Ethan Mbappé, Kylian Mbappé, Gonçalo Ramos, Ousmane Dembélé, Marco Asensio, Randal Kolo Muani, Bradley Barcola.
Head Coach: Luis Enrique
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