Having slipped into the bottom three on the back of three straight defeats, Livorno are in desperate need of a morale-boosting win, but this is clearly not the right time to be facing hungry Milan. The Rossoneri have finally ended a dismal run of results and they will fancy their chances of defeating another relegation strugglers on the road.

Tough times for Livorno

Operating on a tight budget, Livorno weren’t exactly in a position to seriously reinforce the squad after gaining promotion to Serie A, and they are now paying the price for it. As most newly-promoted sides, Amaranto enjoyed a bright start to the season, but it soon became evident they lack the quality and experience needed to survive this campaign. David Nicola’s side have been utterly disappointing of late, losing seven of last nine league matches and they appear to be in all sorts of problems at the moment. Livorno not only lost last three fixtures, but failed to score a single goal in the process, which is enough to suggest they face an uphill task against revived Milan. The current losing run would not be such a big problem if the team had plenty of room for improvement, but since their current league position fairly reflects their abilities, chances are that Amaranto won’t be ending their disappointing streak any time soon. Having suffered a 3-0 defeat to sorry Chievo in their previous match, we cannot really expect them to fare much better against the Rossoneri.

Alfonso De Lucia remains suspended, whereas Ruben Botta and Cristiano Piccini are out of contention due to injury.

Milan back in business

The current season is eerily starting to resemble the previous one, with the main difference being that nobody believes Milan can pull off another great escape and achieve Champions League qualification in the end. However, the good news is the Rossoneri are finally showing improvement after a couple of very difficult months, and the most important thing is the results have improved as well. Milan produced very good performances in draws against Chievo and Genoa, but it was against Celtic that they finally managed to end the barren run, recording a 3-0 victory at the venue where even mighty Barcelona had been beaten last term. The Rossoneri then continued the rich vein of form with a 3-1 away win over Catania, with another triumph at a very difficult ground to play at likely to boost the players’ spirits, especially as they had come from a goal down to record a 3-1 triumph. And with important players starting to return to the side, Milan have a great chance to continue the good run against out-of-sorts Livorno.

Cristian Zaccardo, Marco Amelia, Robinho and Matias Silvestre are out injured, whereas Giampaolo Pazzini, Mattia De Sciglio, Sully Muntari and Ignazio Abate all face fitness tests.

Verdict

Livorno are extremely low on confidence after losing their last three league matches by a big margin, and they don’t look capable of stopping in-form Milan. The Rossoneri seem to have finally rediscovered their form and I can definitely see them winning the third straight away match.

Top pick: Away win   1.67 (2/3) @ William Hill

Alternative pick 1: Milan/Milan   2.60 (8/5) @ Betfair

Alternative pick 2: Milan with -1.5 Asian handicap   2.75 (7/4) @ bet365