All eyes turn to the clash between Milan and Sassuolo in the sixth round of Serie A. Sassuolo hold the upper hand in recent meetings, while the Rossoneri look to extend their unbeaten start to the season.
The numbers from the Opta statistics network throw up a host of striking facts ahead of kick-off, from the head-to-head record to the form of both sides and the goalscoring returns of key individuals.
Sassuolo own the recent history. They have avoided defeat in 7 of the last 9 Serie A meetings with Milan, winning 4 and drawing 3. The last 3 encounters brought one win and two draws, their longest unbeaten run against the Rossoneri in the competition.
Milan did lose their most recent away trip to Sassuolo in Serie A, ending an unbeaten run of 8 consecutive matches that yielded 6 wins and two draws.
Go back to 2016 for the last time the Rossoneri lost two away games in a row against Sassuolo in the competition, when they slipped to three straight defeats.
The first-half curse follows Sassuolo
Sassuolo have managed only one win in their last 10 Serie A meetings with Milan during the first half, drawing 3 and losing 6.
That solitary win arrived on 28 November 2021, a 3-1 scoreline after they turned a deficit around through goals from Gianluca Scamacca and Domenico Berardi, plus an own goal mistakenly steered into his own net by Simon Kjaer.
Milan, meanwhile, want to keep their run going after 3 wins and two draws. Stay unbeaten and they will go six games without defeat to start a Serie A campaign for the first time since 2022-2023.
There is a flip side. The Rossoneri could also record 3 draws in the first 6 rounds for the first time since 2018-2019. Sassuolo, for their part, carry real strength at home, with 8 wins in their last 11 Serie A matches at their own ground against 3 defeats.
Only Inter, with 10 wins, and Roma, with 9, have claimed more home victories since the start of the second half of last season. Napoli matched Sassuolo on 8.
Striking goalscoring numbers for both teams
Sassuolo and Monza are the only two teams to have scored and conceded at least one goal in every Serie A match this season.
Never before have Sassuolo scored in each of their first six games of a single top-flight season, apart from 2015-2016, 2018-2019 and 2020-2021.
Only Como, with 41 shots, and Juventus, with 38, have fired more attempts from outside the box than Sassuolo, who have taken 35 in Serie A this season. At the other end of the scale, nobody has shot from long range less than Milan, level with Parma on 14.
Milan boast the best conversion rate in Serie A this season at 15.6 per cent, with 10 goals from 64 shots. Sassuolo have scored one goal fewer, 9 in total, but needed 22 extra attempts to do it, racking up 86 shots.
Domenico Berardi has 12 goals in 20 Serie A matches against Milan. Across the entire history of the competition, only Silvio Piola, with 22, and Enrico Chiesa, with 14, have scored more against the Rossoneri, while Antonio Di Natale, Carlo Reguzzoni and Stefano Nyers also sit on 12.
Diego Moreira has struck 3 goals for Milan in Serie A inside 127 minutes across 3 appearances. Only two players have managed 4 goals in their first four matches for the Rossoneri in the competition over the last two decades: Mario Balotelli in 2013 and Krzysztof Piatek in 2019.