AC Milan head on the road this Monday in Serie A to kick off their campaign for the 2023/24 season with Bologna up first at the Renato Dall'Ara Stadium off the back of the home side winning their first round Coppa Italia encounter.
After a few troubles in preseason, Bologna returned to winning ways last weekend when they edged past Cesena 2-0 in the Coppa Italia first round.
🎥 Chukwueze and Okafor get their first goals in Rossonero 🔴⚫#MilanNovara #ACMPreseason #SempreMilan pic.twitter.com/AiwWTqeKaQ— AC Milan (@acmilan) August 14, 2023
🎥 Chukwueze and Okafor get their first goals in Rossonero 🔴⚫#MilanNovara #ACMPreseason #SempreMilan pic.twitter.com/AiwWTqeKaQ
Tommaso Corazza scored inside the first two minutes that day, as Joshua Zirkzee also scored late on.
Bologna would have five shots on target that day with none on target conceded.
It has, however, not been a great summer for the club.
Bologna would lose to the likes of AZ Alkmaar and Monaco in preseaon and have also lost the services of Marco Arnautovic for the season on loan at Inter Milan, while Gary Medel and Jerdy Schouten have also departed and left gaps in the sides midfield.
Sam Beukema has joined the club from Alkmaar and bulks up the defence, while Dan Ndoye comes into the attack.
Stefan Posch, Nikola Moro and Oussama El Azzouzi have all come into the club for the season too.
As for Milan, they had a topsy-turvy preseason with the club losing to Barcelona, Real Madrid and Trento while also drawing with Juventus.
They only managed to defeat Novara during this time and Samuel Chukwueze has joined the Milan ranks alongside Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Yunus Musah, Luka Romero, Noah Okafor and Rijani Reijnders.
Despite losing Sandro Tonali to Newcastle United, Ante Rebic to Besiktas and seeing Charles De Ketelaere move to Atlanta on loan, it has been a solid summer transfer window for Milan.
Stefano Pioli's men are also back in the Champions League for next season after Juventus' late points deduction pushed them back into fourth.
In the end, Milan would win 20 of the 38 games and although they lost their title by 20 points on the winners Napoli, Milan only finished four points off second-placed Lazio.
This will also be the first season without Zlatan Ibrahimovic for three years after his retirement.
Bologna ended up in ninth last time out with 14 victories across the 38 games, although they managed to net 53 times throughout the season.
Forebet predicts a win on Monday night for AC Milan and for the game to see under 2.5 goals as Piolo’s side aim to get their name right into the title talk early on.