Okoye’s Udinese vs AC Milan preview: Team news, h2h, predictions, & Chukwueze’s fitness status

On Sunday evening, Super Eagles goalkeeper Maduka Okoye faces his sternest test of the season, as AC Milan, Serie A’s only unbeaten side, travel to Udine seeking a statement win just three days after their Europa League humiliation at Bournemouth.

Ruben Amorim’s men come without their travelling faithful — Milan’s own club endorsed the away-end boycott over Udinese’s €65 ticket pricing — and with Thursday’s 3-0 collapse still raw. Maignan was sent off in the 27th minute after a straight red for shoving Adams at a corner, leaving Milan to play 63 minutes with 10 men before conceding three.

The French goalkeeper’s red carries a UEFA ban only and does not touch this Serie A fixture, but the fatigue and psychological toll of a mid-week trip to England are harder to legislate away.

Udinese vs AC Milan Match Radar

Form and Context: Okoye’s Udinese vs Amorim’s Unbeaten Milan

Udinese’s five-game losing run spans defeats to Lazio (1-2 at home), Inter (3-5 away), Cagliari (0-1 at home), Torino (1-2 away) and most recently Lecce (0-3 at home), leaving them 16th on four points.

The 13 goals conceded across those five fixtures tell one side of the story; Okoye’s workload in goal tells another. He kept 10 clean sheets in 30 league starts last season to help Udinese finish 10th — this campaign’s zero clean sheets from seven outings is a measure of how much the defensive structure has disintegrated around him.

At home the picture is particularly bleak. Runjaić’s side have scored just two goals across four home games — a Hassane Kamara header and a Jesper Karlstrom free kick — and lost three of those four fixtures.

David Alaba, Idrissa Gueye and Vakoun Bayo are all sidelined through injury, stripping the squad’s options at the back and up front simultaneously. Nicolò Zaniolo, only recently returned to full training following a muscle problem, is unlikely to start but could feature from the bench if a match-winning contribution is needed.

The one genuinely encouraging piece of data for Udinese is that they can create — the 3-5 defeat at Inter in September saw them score three times, and they have found the net in two of their four home fixtures.

Jurgen Ekkelenkamp leads the club’s scoring in all competitions this season with three goals, and his ability to drive from midfield will be Runjaić’s best offensive weapon on Sunday.

AC Milan are the last unbeaten side in Serie A — four wins, three draws, 15 points — and only Inter and Lazio sit above them in the table. Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 pressing system has proved difficult to break down domestically, with 14 goals scored, just seven conceded, and a squad that has remained collectively disciplined even when individual results have been fractious.

The 3-2 victory over Atalanta on October 18 is the clearest recent evidence of their quality — they had built a three-goal lead before Atalanta pulled two back, which perhaps revealed something about defensive concentration in the closing stages.

Away from home, every Serie A trip has ended with both teams scoring — the 1-1 at Juventus, 2-2 at Lazio and 1-1 at Sassuolo all feature Milan going forward but conceding in return.

Samuel Chukwueze, who would have given this match a second Nigerian connection, remains out injured. His absence concentrates the entire Super Eagles focus on Okoye at the other end of the pitch.

Head-to-Head: Udinese vs AC Milan

The historical picture across 107 meetings is one-sided: Milan have won 47, Udinese 24, with 36 draws. In the most recent five clashes Milan have won four, outscoring Udinese 11 goals to five.

The one Udinese win in that sample is the result Nigerian fans will most remember — a stunning 3-0 destruction of Milan at San Siro in April 2026, a match in which Okoye himself kept a clean sheet and demonstrated exactly what he is capable of when his defence stays organised.

The more instructive precedent for Sunday is what happened at the Bluenergy in September 2025: Milan won 3-0 here, on this same ground. In four of the last five away trips by Milan to Udine the visitors have left with three points.

Udinese were a significantly stronger side at that point — they finished 10th last season — so translating that record directly onto Sunday’s fixture would be an overcorrection, but it is relevant context for where the weight of evidence sits.

Team News: Udinese vs AC Milan

Okoye starts in goal — as he has in every one of Udinese’s seven league games this season — with a back three of Bertola, Ebosse and Solet in front of him. Ekkelenkamp and Chakvetadze operate as the creative pair supporting Davis up front. For Milan, Ramos is expected to return from the minor knock that kept him out of the Europa League trip; scans showed no significant damage. Maignan reclaims his place between the posts after serving no ban under Serie A rules.

Star Player Comparison

The goalkeeper duel is one of the most compelling individual subplots of this fixture. Okoye has been the busiest stopper in Udinese’s backline, logging 20 saves in his first five league appearances alone — a workload born of defensive exposure rather than his own failings.

Maignan, by contrast, has conceded just seven times across the same seven-game window and has kept two clean sheets. On Sunday Okoye will be working to hold on; Maignan will be working to stay unblemished.

The Managers: Runjaić and Amorim

Kosta Runjaić guided Udinese to 10th last season — a finish that looks increasingly like a high-water mark given this campaign’s injury crisis and the squad’s thin depth.

His 3-4-2-1 structure delivered genuine tactical coherence last term, but the same system has looked fragile in 2026-27 with the personnel to make it work now missing or under-performing. He has continued to trust his principles even as the results turn against him.

Ruben Amorim was appointed at Milan in June 2026 following Massimiliano Allegri’s departure. The Portuguese had managed Manchester United from November 2024 to January 2026 before leaving by mutual consent; the move to San Siro represents a fresh start.

His 3-4-2-1 pressing system has transferred well to Serie A — seven league games unbeaten — but the Europa League results have been patchier, and Thursday’s debacle at Bournemouth was the lowest point of his reign at San Siro so far.

Tactical Preview: Udinese vs AC Milan

Both managers set up in mirrored 3-4-2-1 systems, which turns the contest into a battle of identically structured units. The wide midfield positions are decisive in that scenario: if Kamara and Vojvoda track Milan’s Moreira and Estupinan effectively, they limit the width that gives Pulisic and Rabiot the space to operate. If they push up and leave gaps in behind, Milan’s quality in the final third will exploit it almost immediately.

Udinese’s best chance is through direct vertical passes to Davis and Ekkelenkamp’s runs from deeper positions. The 3-5 defeat at Inter showed they can produce goals from those channels even against better organised defences, and Milan’s back three of Gila, De Winter and Pavlovic, while solid, has occasionally been caught short when forced into rapid defensive transitions.

Six of Milan’s seven away goals in Serie A this season have come in the second half — suggesting a team that controls without punishing early and then steps on the gas. For Okoye, surviving the opening 45 minutes with a live scoreline could be the condition under which Udinese believe they have a chance of nicking something.

The Naija Slip

Score Prediction