The facts are inarguable. Milan had not lost both their opening home games since 1930. They have been beaten at San Siro by relegation fodder Sampdoria and Atalanta. This side has no identity, no plan and no clue. Will Massimiliano Allegri be sacked? Almost certainly. Did he deserve the blame for this situation? Probably not.

This trap has been laid for the Coach since the summer, as Adriano Galliani and Silvio Berlusconi try to shift the responsibility for running this club into the ground. Selling Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva was just the most obvious moment in an overall downsizing campaign. Ah, ‘downsizing,’ that term that tries to make dismantling a company seem like an improvement.

Their inevitable slide into mediocrity is visible in the players now filling the ranks, from Kevin Constant to Francesco Acerbi. The most worrying aspect is that not only are the Rossoneri using these players – they couldn’t even afford to buy them outright. If you construct a squad of loans, co-ownership deals and players on the verge of a Bosman, then you can’t really complain when the results are unimpressive.

Galliani continues to insist they have “not lost ambition” and that Allegri has to challenge for the Scudetto with the squad at his disposal, but nobody genuinely believes that. I doubt even Galliani believes it. This is why I am concerned for the Coach, who let’s not forget did win the Scudetto just over a year ago and is now being groomed as the perfect scapegoat.

The stage is set for a dismissal in the next few weeks or even days, where Mauro Tassotti will be promoted from the role of assistant manager to caretaker. He’ll never get the job permanently, of course, because Tassotti isn’t glamorous enough for Berlusconi. There are already rumours Pippo Inzaghi is being prepared for the position after all of one game in charge of the Allievi Nazionali youth academy team. It’s still more experience than Leonardo had, I suppose...

I am not saying Allegri is blameless, of course. The performances against Sampdoria and Atalanta reminded me of Luis Enrique’s Roma last season. There was the same sterile possession, growing sense of desperation as time wore on and tendency to just hit long-distance efforts from every conceivable angle in the hope one might get a deflection in. This Milan is shapeless, boring, uninspired and workmanlike, but above all slow. They have always struggled with finding a change of pace, but more than ever before the Diavolo are stuck in second gear. Playing like this, they’ll finish a lot lower than second in the table.

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