Pioli feels the pressure before facing Turin

Defending champion AC Milan hopes to revive its season after it derailed when it hosts Turin in Serie A on Friday, knowing that it may suffer a fifth consecutive loss in all competitions, which will happen for the first time in 93 years.

Milan started 2023 horribly, not winning in the last seven matches and conceding 13 goals in the last four defeats, with pressure rising on coach Stefano Pioli, who knows he must make changes.

He said after losing 1-0 against local rivals Inter in a summit match this weekend in the league, “This does not cancel out all the work we have done. There is a realization that there are moments when you need to take a different approach to return to competition. Negative results and performances have eliminated some of what we believe in.” “It’s normal because this team is not yet mature. Many players are not in good shape and we struggled to deal with that.”

Milan suffered recently against Turin, where it lost to coach Ivan Juric’s team to bid farewell to the Italian Cup last January, after losing at the land of its league rivals last October.

The battle for the qualifying places for the Champions League raged after Milan collapsed and Juventus was punished by deducting 15 points from its score.

Fourth-placed Lazio will play fifth-placed Atlanta in Rome on Saturday.

Lazio hopes that striker Ciro Immobile will regain his goal sense, after he failed to score in the last four league matches.

Third-placed Roma coach Jose Mourinho will seek to maintain his perfect league record against Lecce in Saturday’s match, having beaten them three times.

Inter, second in the standings, will be on a date with a trip to face Sampdoria, who are penultimate, next Monday.

Napoli are starting to dream of ending their 33-year wait to win the league title and much of the credit for that success can go to Victor Osimhen, who has scored seven goals in his last five league matches.

The Nigerian striker is top scorer in Europe’s top five leagues for 2023 with seven goals, scoring one every 72 minutes.

The league leaders have won their last eight home league matches and on Sunday will host bottom club Cremonese, who have yet to win a game this season.

Juventus, who are looking to rebuild after being deducted from points and appearing at poor levels at times recently, scored an impressive 3-0 victory over Salernitana on Tuesday.

But the injury crisis took a turn for the worse after midfielder Fabio Meretti was carried off on a stretcher in the first half.

And Italian media reported that the 19-year-old will be out of action for three weeks, which means he will miss several important matches.

Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri played down his team’s ambitions for this season before hosting Fiorentina on Sunday.

He said, “Look at the reality of the matter. We collected 41 points, but we got only 26, so… until we reach 40 points and for safety we need 14 more, and then we will see where we will be. We are now equal to Monza on points, and the goal is to appear in the upper half of the table.”

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