Worst start since before World War Two: All the key stats from Lazio-Milan | OneFootball

AC Milan are still looking for their first win of the season after they went ahead, fell behind and eventually battled back to earn a 2-2 draw against Lazio last night.

Strahinja Pavlovic opened the scoring with a header from a corner early on, getting his first goal for the club in the process. However, Taty Castellanos and Boulaye Dia scored in quick succession to turn the game on its head in the second half.

Substitutes came to Milan’s rescue again, with Tammy Abraham setting up Rafael Leao just moments after both came on to make it level once again, and that would be how it remained. Below are the key stats from the game…

Tale of the tape

For the first time this season, the stats do not really favour Milan. They had more possession (58%), but their Expected Goals (xG) was substantially less at 1.08 to Lazio’s 2.05. They also had less big chances (2 to 5) and less shots on target (3 to 5).

The Rossoneri did shoot more in total and had more corner kicks, while they were better from a discipline perspective, but the balance of play and the quality of chances created suggests that the second half could have quickly got away from Paulo Fonseca’s side.

Making history in a bad way

Points are what make prizes, and it would be fair to say that Fonseca is not in a queue to collect any prizes at the moment given the stuttering start that his team have made.

Milan have not started a season this poorly since 1938-39 and 1930-31. In both of these, they clinched just one point in the first three games, whereas this season they have two.

Not only that, but the defensive record is an absolute shambles with six goals conceded after three games. The new boss pledged to defend differently, yet things seem to be getting worse compared to the end of the Stefano Pioli era.

The Diavolo have conceded at least two goals in each of their first three games of a Serie A season for the first time since 1983-84, when Ilario Castagner was in charge during a very turbulent time.

The individual positives

In the last two seasons, Rafael Leão is the only player to have scored at least ten goals and provided at least ten assists in Serie A (10G, 10A).

Pavlović is the second Serbian defender to score in Serie A with AC Milan; the previous one was Jan-Carlo Simić against Monza on 17 December 2023.

Adding to the aura of his set-piece threat, Pavlovic has scored all five of his goals for Red Bull Salzburg (four between 2022 and 2024 in the Austrian Bundesliga) and Milan (vs. Lazio in Serie A) and with headers.

Christian Pulisic has provided two assists in his last four Serie A games, as many as in his previous 18 matches in the competition. His assist last night is his first from a set-piece in the league after his eight assists in 2023-24 all came from open play.