Yes, I agree with both of your opinions, that Fiorentina is indeed a quite strong team in Serie A. However, if Forentina is compared with AC Milan, I think the difference will be very visible, that AC Milan is clearly superior. Because if you look at all aspects, starting from the Serie A ranking, the consistency of winning in every match, Head to Head and also in terms of player quality, in my opinion AC Milan is clearly superior to Fiorentina. The reason is that currently Fiorentina is ranked 8th, while AC Milan is currently ranked 2nd in Serie A. So from here it is clear that AC Milan is indeed better. Apart from that, if you look at the consistency of winning in every match, AC Milan is also superior. The reason is that if you look at the series of matches played by Fiorentina, in the last few weeks Fiorentina has experienced many difficulties in every match. Even against a less strong team like Empoli, Fiorentina experienced great difficulties. However, this is different from AC Milan, which wins more often in every match.
Apart from that, from the Head to Head record between Fiorentina and AC Milan, of the 5 meetings between these two teams, the result is that AC Milan is superior with 3 wins and 2 losses.
So with these facts, I am very optimistic that AC Milan will definitely win the match against Fiorentina. Because as you said, AC Milan definitely wants to be able to sit more comfortably in second place in Serie A. Plus, at the end of this season, AC Milan definitely wants to continue achieving winning results. because currently there are approximately 10 more matches left on the Serie A match schedule. So AC Milan will definitely make the most of these 10 matches, including the match against Fiorentina this week.
Milan needs to put in extra work to their efforts. Their activeness in the European cup was very much a good push for them in terms of their confidence building but there's been times of less ball performances which takes till on them and it's causing setbacks in their Serie A race. This season though, they weren't really much of a strengthened team with increasing tempo as before but they tried to win games. All hope isn't lost for them as they've still got chances against lesser teams and their next league opponents. They're a good side but it'll take something extra to be a better side.
For now, they've got to strive to stay in shape and in the right spot on the league table. There are still weeks to go, no one knows if a change can be effected to the standings, one just has to look out for every team's performance. In all their strides, they never should forget that they're in huge competitive battle in the Serie A league and every moment and game count, so they've got no leisure to slack or relax or draw back in their efforts too. Though Milan's injury cases caused loopholes in the certainty of them progressing in the European contest.
They're currently at a time that they'd need to put in more proactive solutions to help them out of their current predicament. In their domestic league as well, they have not really been up and doing as they're known for, their matches can't even be confidently predicted because they're lagging behind. They're not currently the Ac Milan that we know. The coach himself is experienced with them therefore there's a probability that he'd rectify the default in no time but they really have to up their game if they want to progress through this season without issue.
Fiorentina on the other hand have been in between performances. Yes, generally this season, they've been more of a threat to teams too in all their games. They're a good side and there still many other chances for them but they don't have to keep being in the dark, letting lower teams overpower them. Even though they were the visitors, they could have still struggled hard to keep a draw at least. The strategy should be redrawn, they've got to put in extra efforts to getting a better result than what they already have.