There were more than seven minutes left to play, plus injury time, in a crucial end-of-season game, yet San Siro was already half empty. Milan’s Ultras had deserted the Curva Sud to prepare a post-game protest, but even the less organised, more forgiving parts of the club’s fanbase could not be bothered to stay until the end of another humiliating defeat.

Their team was losing 3-0 to Atalanta and it hardly even felt a surprise. With this loss, inevitable as it now appeared, the Rossoneri had collectedseven points from their past eight games. Only three teams in Serie A had done worse over the same stretch. Two of those – Verona, and Pisa – have been relegated. The third, Lecce, are perilously close to joining them.

Milan exist in a different orbit, still fourth in the table, even if their grip on a Champions League spot looks very loose indeed. It feels absurd to say it now, but before this miserable run they were keeping the Serie A title race alive. They were the last team to beat Inter, since crowned as champions, on 8 March. The gap between them, with mocking symmetry, was seven points.

No wonder the few fans who stuck it out to the end on Sunday should feel nostalgic. Watching their beleaguered team struggle to get the ball out from the back against Atalanta’s persistent press, they started to sing for Paolo Maldini. One of the all-time great defenders, he won seven Serie A titles and five Champions Leagues (or European Cups, as they were when he started collecting them) as a player, extending the legacy of success begun by his father, Cesare.

But supporters were not invoking Paolo’s achievements on the pitch so much as his more recent chapter serving on the club’s board. Appointed as a director for sporting strategy and development in 2018, Maldini was promoted to technical director a year later. He played a central role in player recruitment, helping build the team that won Serie A in 2021-22 – the club’s first Scudetto for 11 years.

Maldini’s position was initially confirmed when RedBird Capital bought Milan in 2022, but he was fired one year later. The Rossoneri had just finished fourth and Maldini spoke about the need for further squad investment to stay competitive at the highest level. Milan’s most expensive signing of the previous summer, Charles De Ketelaere, had been a flop and their new CEO Giorgio Furlani said the objective given to him by RedBird was to get the club “living within our means”.

There were layers to these decisions, each party with their own version of how working relationships grew strained. Maldini’s assessment, though, resonated with fans who want to see their team fight for trophies. Milan finished second in 2023-24, but fell all the way to eighth last season.

The appointment of Massimiliano Allegri last May was supposed to get things back on track. Here was a man defined by Italy’s sporting press as a guarantee of Champions League football. An aggressive summer transfer window followed, headlined by the arrival of Luka Modric and featuring significant outlays on Christopher Nkunku, Ardon Jashari, Samuele Ricci, Koni De Winter, Adrien Rabiot and Pervis Estupiñán. With no European distractions, Milan looked well equipped for a strong domestic campaign.

Up until March, they produced one. The performance to beat Inter was classic Allegri, controlling the game while surrendering possession. Estupiñán scored before half-time and Milan barely gave their opponents a sniff after that. This had been the mode all season: just win, it does not need to be pretty.

The problem with focusing always on the outcome is that you have nothing to fall back on once that goes wrong. Milan’s form early this season was built on the performances of talented individuals – Modric, certainly, but also Rabiot and especially Christian Pulisic, who had eight goals and two assists in the league, despite missing five games, by the end of December.

Allegri’s innovation was to move the American inside to operate as a centre-forward. He pulled the same trick with Rafael Leão when the Portuguese returned from a calf injury. Both thrived at first, but as their goals tailed off Milan have struggled to replace them.

Too many square pegs forced into round holes? Or is the picture a little more nuanced? Pulisic and Leão have been affected by physical problems as the season progressed. The former was supposed to start against Atalanta, but was ruled out at the last moment with a glute complaint. Leão played, but continued to look a shadow of his best self, failing to beat his man on four out of five attempted dribbles.

Atalanta were excellent, pressing selectively and executing ruthlessly. Giacomo Raspadori, signed from Atlético Madrid in January, brought a typically high-energy bustle behind the attack and it was his blocked shot that rebounded to Éderson inside the area for the opener. Nikola Krstovic, in the centre-forward role, pinned his man expertly before laying the ball off to Davide Zappacosta to make it 2-0 before half-time.

What stood out in these moments was the clarity of purpose: each player performing the role they are best suited to and understanding what was required. The contrast with Milan’s disjointed assembly of talents was stark. Absent the injured Modric, there was no glue to bind them together.

Raspadori made it 3-0 at the start of the second half, beating Mike Maignan at his near post. San Siro began to empty. A pair of fans attempted a protest, holding up shirts with Maldini’s name on the back in front of the section where executives sit, but stewards ushered them away.

Ultras had already made their feelings known before kick-off with a protest outside the ground and then via some choreography in the Curva Sud, using their bodies and mobile phone flashlights to spell out the letters “G.F. OUT” – Furlani’s initials.

By leaving early, they almost missed an improbable turnaround. Milan pulled a goal back in the 88th minute, Strahinja Pavlovic heading home from a Ricci free-kick. Nkunku, on as a second-half substitute, then won and converted a penalty. Suddenly the deficit was down to one goal. In the seventh minute of injury time, Matteo Gabbia almost equalised, flashing a header wide from another set-piece.

The game ended 3-2 to Atalanta, a result that felt misleading. Milan had almost pinched a draw, but only because their opponents became complacent. There was little to encourage belief in better times just around the corner.

Milan are clinging on to fourth by virtue of their head-to-head tiebreaker over Roma, who have drawn level on 67 points. Como are two further back. It is also true that neither third-placed Juventus, on 68, nor second-placed Napoli, on 70, have locked down their spots.

Milan’s final two games look very winnable, against opponents from the bottom half, although Genoa, next up, have been anything but a pushover since hiring Daniele De Rossi as manager in November.

More to the point, Milan simply have not been good enough in the past two months to feel confident in their ability to beat anyone. After their previous game, a 2-0 loss at Sassuolo, Allegri said: “I always said I would be happy to secure Champions League football even on the final weekend.” It looks unlikely to come any sooner, if at all.