What Is the Minimum Achievement for Sinisa Mihajlovic at AC Milan This Season?
AC Milan’s convincing 3-1 win away to Lazio on Sunday propelled them into sixth place in Serie A, just five points behind league leaders Fiorentina. After 11 rounds of fixtures, mathematically, the Scudetto is well within reach for Milan. But is it the objective?
Not long ago the situation was very different. Head coach Sinisa Mihajlovic, his seat barely warm following his appointment in the summer, was the subject of constant speculation regarding his future.
Rumours abounded that the Milan hierarchy weren’t happy with the Serb. Just one week ago Corriere dello Sport (h/t Football Italia) reported that Mihajlovic’s “position (was) still precarious,” despite a 2-1 win over Sassuolo.
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However, the performance against Lazio represented Milan’s best display since Mihajlovic took charge of the team. Not only that; it was their third straight victory, stretching their unbeaten run to four games.
The upturn means that, while previously people speculated as to how far Milan could fall during Mihajlovic’s tenure, now the focus is on exactly how high they could finish.
In a season where Juventus’ poor start has opened up the title race to a wide variety of contenders, Milan’s continued resurgence could end up throwing them head first into an unlikely Scudetto challenge.
However, while the title is a numerical possibility, it remains an illogical ambition for a club who finished 10th last season—their lowest ebb in over a decade—and began this campaign so meekly.
The recent run of form has justified Mihajlovic’s appointment and given the fans hope that this season the club can move forward, but the title nonetheless seems out of reach. Milan’s goal difference remains negative, and while they are five points off the top of the table, the same distance separates them from the league’s bottom half.
A more realistic ambition would be Champions League qualification through a top-three league finish, something most within the club see as the true aim for Milan this season.
At the start of this season, Silvio Berlusconi stated, per the Guardian, “It’s categorically imperative that Milan return to the Champions League and Europe next season.”
Mihajlovic, himself, offered a corresponding view, telling reporters, per Brian Homewood of Reuters (h/t Daily Mail): “Our goal is to finish inside the top three in Italy.”
More recently, club vice-president Adriano Galliani clarified this objective, telling Mediaset Premium (h/t Football Italia) that, “The Champions League has been the goal since the start of the season…That’s the position for which we’ve created this team.”
Such uniformity of opinion suggests that Milan’s aims are clear. It’s top three or bust for Mihajlovic and his players this season, and there are several reasons behind this.
One is simply a matter of prestige. Milan’s history, particularly since Berlusconi arrived in the 1980s to galvanise the club, has been one of domestic and continental triumph.
From a purely romantic perspective, the Rossoneri’s abject showing in Serie A and inability to qualify for European competition in recent years is embarrassingly below their traditional standards.
However, a more pertinent reason behind Milan’s desire for Champions League football relates to the club’s financial position.
Previously a fixture in the Deloitte Money League’s top 10 in terms of revenue accrued per season, Milan slipped to 12th in the company’s most recent report. The drop showed that commercially, Milan were struggling to keep up with their rivals both at home and abroad.
That report came on the back of the 2013-14 season, and it is worth noting that since it came out, Milan have been without Champions League football, a hugely lucrative earner.
Milan also recently scrapped a plan to build a new stadium, something which the Guardian’s Chloe Beresford explains as a “huge blow to a club whose matchday revenue dropped by six percent in the 2014-15 season.”
Furthermore, in the summer transfer window, Milan’s net spend on transfer fees for new players stood at £55.87 million, per Transfermarkt. This was in the main due to the expensive signatures of Carlos Bacca (£21 million), Alessio Romagnoli (£17.5 million) and Andrea Bertolacci (£14 million).
Given Milan’s recent absence from European competition and the subsequent loss of its financial prizes and television revenue, the failed plan for a new stadium and the recent intensive investment in refurbishing a haggard playing squad, Milan simply cannot afford to continue missing out on Champions League football.
Winning the league remains the ultimate dream but a top-three position is a far more realistic aim this season. For both Milan and Mihajlovic, it could prove vital to their short- and long-term futures.
