Italian Serie A
2025-09-14 - AC Milan vs Bologna
A Sports Betting Pick by Cafa
Italy Serie A - Round 3
San Siro, Milano, Lombardy, Italy (80,018)
Sunday, 14 September 2025, 20:45 CET
Free live streaming at Bet365. Funded account required.
Milan Team News
Where to start describing this mess that is AC Milan? How to get the message across that this is a disfunctional team that plays at pedestrian pace, and bought the king of pedestrian football to run things?
Milan keeps longing for a quick magical solution to their problems, such as buying another forward, but when they do, the choice is wrong. Santiago Gimenez isn't the forward you can build your team around, Rafael Leao is still injured, so Pulisic is the most offensive player, with Saelemaekers doing well too.
With Modric in midfield, all this would work if the offensive trio would have energy and ability, and if the other two midfielders knew how to score when presented with a chance. But Fofana and Loftus-Cheek can not.
So you end up seeing centre-back Pavlovic taking matters into his own hands and starting to dribble into the final third.
Nkunku won't be the answer, Rabiot won't be the answer. The French midfielder was released from Juventus - and therefore from Serie A where he just couldn't make an impact - in July last year, and now Milan pays Marseille to bring him back in for another chance at age 30? The only side to benefit here is Olympique Marseille as they count their €7m.
The worst part is that Milan truly has potential to do well. This side creates a lot of chances and looks good in the final third, it's just that the absence of a good striker and the total inability of central midfielders to shoot when presented with a shot ruins AC Milan's games.
Bologna Team News
Bologna can be happy with how their results turned out so far. They lost to Roma, but everyone loses at Stadio Olimpico, and the result was 1-0 so it was no embarassment. And then, when they got back home, they won 1-0 themselves against the rising star that is Como. Now that was an impressive performance and an impressive result.
Bologna is known to be a hard nut to crack, the big Italian teams can't really have their way with them. Milan, for example, only won two of the last eight meetings, and Bologna took their most recent one in style, winning the Italian Cup 1-0 in Rome on Stadio Olimpico in May this year.
You're looking at a seriously underish side here that won't have many overs at all this season. Bologna is back to their stubborn ways, and that's exactly how they like it. Milan will have a lot of trouble here.
Probable Lineups
Milan (3-5-1-1): Maignan - Tomori, Gabbia, Pavlovic - Saelemaekers, Fofana, Modric, Rabiot, Estupinan - Loftus-Cheek - Gimenez. Coach Allegri.
Bologna (4-2-3-1): Skorupski - Zortea, Vitik, Heggem, Lykogiannis - Ferguson, Freuler - Orsolini, Bernardeschi, Cambiaghi - Castro. Coach Italiano.
For Milan, a 3-5-1-1 is announced, with Loftus-Cheek as the second forward, and with Pulisic on the bench. If this is what will truly happen, it's borderline insanity to put Loftus-Cheek in any advanced role.
The Betting Market
The price on Milan is 1.91. As if they're a firm favourite here but against a tough side so that's why the price rises a bit. It is not so. Milan is disfunctional and they can only win this through sheer individual quality and through a moment of magic from, say, Modric. Or/and a fine dribble by Pulisic.
You can get 2.00 on Over 2.5 Goals and 1.80 on Under 2.5 Goals. The former has more value, as Milan is likely to dig themselves a hole by conceding first. As usual.
The Betting Verdict
You can just ignore everything that's been written and simplify this game to the single truth that Milan's defence always concedes. Will Bologna score against Milan just like everyone else does? Likely. Milan's defensive problems won't disappear overnight.
Milan vs Bologna H2H is all over the place - you got five-goal thrillers, nil-nils, wins-to-nil by Bologna on the road. Every result you can think of is here. So it's perfectly possible to see 0-2 here that ruins our BTTS bet, or a dominant 2-0 by Milan. But we think, based on how Milan looks and feels like at this particular moment, that they'll both concede and score.
The Statistics :
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Pick :
Milan 2-1 Bologna
