Milan visit Tottenham in North London in the second leg of the Champions League Round of 16 on Wednesday and Peter Young notes the two sides have shown many common traits this season, especially unpredictability.
The games since the first leg meeting in Milan, in which Milan ran out 1-0 victors, have presented an intriguing set of results from both sides.
Stefano Pioli’s side followed up their win in Europe with maximum points from the games against Monza and Atalanta, before falling to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Fiorentina on Saturday afternoon.
Tottenham’s fortunes have been less favourable since losing at home to Stefano Pioli’s side a few weeks ago.
After consecutive 2-0 wins over West Ham and Chelsea in the Premier League, Spurs crashed out of the FA Cup at the hands of Championship outfit Sheffield United, before losing 1-0 to struggling Wolves in the league on Sunday.
Watching both Milan and Tottenham over recent weeks has come with a slight feeling of unpredictability and coming good on expectations to win certain matches has proved to be a minor issue at certain points.
Both sides have previously proved that they are capable of performing at the highest level, but results domestically haven’t always backed up those claims.
After the 25th round of Serie A fixtures, Milan hold the division’s fifth spot, but are level on points with Roma on fourth and trail by just one in terms of goal difference.
It’s a similar story in North London, where Spurs temporarily remain in the top four, although could be overtaken by Liverpool should they win their game in hand.
And so far, it hasn’t been a disastrous season for either team, both still vying for a spot in the Champions League last eight, however, fans in both Milan and London would still have expected slightly more heading into the season.
Milan are still very much in the race for the Champions League spots, but the overall level of performance hasn’t matched those that led them to their 19th Scudetto last season.
Life this year hasn’t always necessarily been smooth sailing for Pioli and injuries have of course ravaged certain areas of the squad.
The absence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been an enormous blow to the Rossoneri’s attacking department this season, whilst the significant calf injury Mike Maignan sustained in October meant the Frenchman missed 18 important matches.
Tottenham have also been without their influential French goalkeeper recently as Hugo Lloris was ruled out for up to eight weeks at the start of February.
The most notable absentee has of course been Antonio Conte, who has been recovering at home in Italy from emergency gallbladder surgery at the beginning of last month. The former Inter and Juventus coach led Spurs in the reverse fixture with Milan at San Siro and will be back on Wednesday against the Rossoneri after his assistant Cristian Stellini stood in as deputy.
As will be the same for Pioli, immediate attention will have turned to the second round of the all-important upcoming Champions League tie.
The Rossoneri hold the advantage heading into the clash in North Londo and will be hoping that Saturday’s result against Fiorentina was just a minor bump in the road.
Conte, meanwhile, is in desperate need of a decent result to get his Tottenham side back up and running again and importantly to quash any rumours that his future may be under scrutiny.