Firing Sinisa Mihajlovic Will Turn AC Milan's Season into a Waste

Sinisa Mihajlovic has taken an AC Milan team that was a demoralized shell of its glorious self at the end of last season and started it on the path toward rebirth.  

They have won four more games than they had at this point last season and are nine points and two positions better in the table—and four positions better than where they ended up last season.

Apparently, at least for owner and president Silvio Berlusconi, this is a fireable offense.
If a Sky Itaila report that broke late Monday night (h/t Football Italia) is to be believed, the relationship between Milan and their coach has collapsed.
According to the report, Mihajlovic is fed up with Berlusconi's interference in the team, and the club owner, who has publicly criticized his coach on numerous occasions this year, has decided to release the Serbian regardless at the end of the season.
Mihajlovic has denied that he will leave, dismissing the reports to the club's in-house TV network Milan Channel (h/t Football Italia) as "baseless rumors."  But Berlusconi and the club have been eerily silent.
Berlusconi isn't Maurizio Zamparini-level crazy—the Palermo patron seems well on his way to his seventh manager of this season—but it isn't out of character for him to dismiss a coach that has had success.  He did so just two summers ago when he sacked Clarence Seedorf even though the Dutchman had had a decent run in his half-season in charge.

 

Bacca has been an important building block for Milan's future.

That move, of course, was more justified considering the fact that Seedorf had lost the locker room.  But if he were to fire Mihajlovic—a coach who has had success on the field and an excellent relationship with his players—Berlusconi would be throwing a major roadblock in his own way.
Mihajlovic has finally started Milan's rebuilding process in earnest.  If he leaves, Berlusconi will have turned the entire 2015-16 season into an epic waste of time.
After five years of financial austerity that saw top-level players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva depart without being adequately replaced, Berlusconi finally splashed some cash this summer.  Striker Carlos Bacca was brought in for €30 million from Sevilla.  Promising young center back Alessio Romagnoli cost another €25 million to AS Roma.  He overspent on midfielder Andrea Bertolacci, who set the team back another €20 million.
The team is finally still getting meat on its bones.  Romagnoli has the potential to develop into a top-line center back worthy of the legacy of players like Alessandro Nesta, Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini.  Bacca gives the team the goalscorer that the team has lacked since Ibrahimovic left for Paris Saint-Germain.  Combined with steady role players like Luca Antonelli and budding stars in Giacomo Bonaventura, Milan has finally put in place the framework to climb back to the top of Italian soccer.
Mihajlovic has been the foundation that that framework is built on.  After some experimenting, he has come upon the system that best fits his players.  He's found the right starting XI and sent them out consistently to develop real chemistry.
There were some bumps in the road.  There was the 4-0 thrashing the team suffered at the hands of Napoli in October and the surprise home loss to Bologna coming out of the winter break.  But Mihajlovic learned from each of those setbacks, and unlike last year when Filippo Inzaghi's team fell further into the abyss, the Serb's Milan came out stronger.

 

Silvio Berlusconi has been unconvinced of Mihajlovic all season.

But a trip to the Coppa Italia final for the first time in 13 years and a real chance of a return to European competition for the first time since 2013 seems not to be enough for Berlusconi.  (While we're on the subject of Europe, this column incorrectly stated last week that Milan is guaranteed a Europa League place with Coppa final opponent Juventus all but certain to finish in the top five—a recent rule change transferred the place in that scenario from the Coppa runners-up to the sixth-placed team in the league.  We regret the error.)
All indications are that Berlusconi was expecting what Antonio Conte did with Juventus in the 2011-12 season.  Not necessarily an unbeaten season, but certainly a vault back to the top in very short order.
That's an incredibly unrealistic expectation.  On the one hand, Juve's jump to the top was spurred by some deft work in the front office.  They snagged Arturo Vidal from Bayer Leverkusen, Stephan Lichtsteiner from Lazio and, of course, capitalized on a monumental mistake by Milan to bring Andrea Pirlo into the fold.  That magic season also coincided with the opening of their palatial new stadium—something Milan can't say will happen anytime soon.
Milan came into this season with some deep flaws, and Mihajlovic has actually done a fantastic job covering them while leveraging strong points.  But if he leaves this summer, all the work he and the squad have done this year will be undone in an instant.

Milan has its framework in place.  They've even started putting up the walls.  In order to finish the house, they need consistency.
If Mihajlovic is fired, if the players have to learn a new coach's system from the ground up, it would strip the club back to the studs.  An entire season of good progress would be thrown into the gutter just because Silvio Berlusconi didn't get the instant gratification he desired.
If Milan expect their rebuilding project to continue on the right path, they need stability in the coach's office.  If they instead install their fourth coach in three seasons this summer, they will tear down all their hard work.  That must not happen.
If it does, Berlusconi will have no one but himself to blame for what follows.