AC MILAN v NEWCASTLE: OPPONENT REVIEW

Following the loss in the league derby against Inter, AC Milan will host Newcastle for their opener of the Champions League 2023/24. The Rossoneri gets right back out there and will be looking to start their European journey in the best way possible. Newcastle, on the other hand, lost three in a row in the Premier League before winning their last match against Brentford. They have six points on the board and sit far from table leaders Manchester City. Eddie Howe’s squad, who surprised last year in the Premier League by finishing 4th in the table behind Manchester City, Arsenal, and Manchester United, returns to the Champions League for the third time in their history (1997/98 and 2002/3) after an absence of over 20 years. 

The last time they took part in the Champions League, the English side managed to lose their first three games in the competition, but still went through to the next round (leaving in the second group stage after finishing in 3rd place behind Barcelona and Inter, and ahead of Bayer Leverkusen): only Atalanta in 2019/20 followed the exact same path as the English team since. Newcastle has had difficulties playing away: the Magpies have only won 22% of their away matches in the competition (2W, 2D, 5L) compared to their 56% win rate at home (5W, 0D, 4L).

NEWCASTLE SOLID IN DEFENCE, BUT STRUGGLE AWAY
Over the last Premier League season, Eddie Howe’s squad showed that they leave little room for opposition attackers, they are the team present in both tournaments who conceded the fewest shots on target (156) ahead of Manchester City (107) and Arsenal (147). They also kept the third most clean sheets with 15, after Manchester United (18) and Arsenal (16).

However, you only need to look at the Magpies' away performances to see the statistics change: Newcastle have failed to win any of the last four away matches in the league, losing against Manchester City (1-0) and Brighton (3-1) in the last two and conceding seven goals overall. In total, the team has only kept a clean sheet in  33% of the games played away (5/15) since the start of last season in the English first division: the most recent dates back to January when they drew goalless away to Crystal Palace.

THE THREAT OF THE WILSON-ISAK PAIRING AND TONALI AT NEWCASTLE
The biggest threat for the Rossoneri defence will be English forward Callum Wilson: since the start of last year’s Premier League season, he has scored 21 goals in the competition, behind only to Erling Haaland (43) and Harry Kane (30). The player, born in 1992, came up through Coventry City’s youth sector and has already scored 3 goals in 5 appearances this season. Alexander Isak, his partner in attack, counts only one less with 2. The technical Swede has scored 12 goals in 26 appearances for the Magpies since the start of the 2022/23 Premier League Season. They will both be backed up by Kieran Trippier, the Newcastle player who has created the most chances for his teammates this season (12) and one of the best defenders in the English league at the moment. 

Other than the three players, mention has to be made about former Rossoneri player Sandro Tonali: the Italian midfielder moved from AC Milan to Newcastle in the last transfer window. He played all 12 of AC Milan’s games in the last Champions League season, racking up 1053 minutes on the pitch which made him the AC Milan player that played the most in the 2022/23 campaign.

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