After finishing in 10th place in last year’s Serie A, few Milan fans would have expected a total as paltry as nine points from their first seven games.

With a new coach arriving at Milanello and €90 million being splurged on transfers, Milan were supposed to be the turning things around after two seasons of deep malaise.

Instead, the Rossoneri toiled in midfield, and showed so little spark that reports quickly emerged that owner Silvio Berlusconi wanted Mihajlovic gone as soon as possible.

To make matters even worse, city rivals Inter - who had also invested quite heavily in the summer - were a fixture at the top despite some shaky play.

What had happened? It turns out that Berlusconi himself wasn’t as a innocent as it first appeared. While coach Sinisa Mihajlovic had deployed both 4-3-3 and 4-3-1-2 during his time with Sampdoria, the Milan patron implored him to lineup in the latter, echoing his complaints to Carlo Ancelotti some ten years ago on the same subject (“Milan play with two strikers!”).

With the attacking talent of Carlos Bacca, Luiz Adriano and Mario Balotelli coming through the door, it seemed that the 4-3-1-2 was a practical way of putting this influx of new attacking talent to good use.

Or so Berlusconi thought, anyway.

The big problem was that, though the front line and defence had been improved (the latter by acquiring Alessio Romagnoli), Milan’s midfield still resembled an unfinished product.

Short of a true trequartista that could provide a creative spark and provide service to a hungry Bacca and Luiz Adriano, Mihajlovic tried Keisuke Honda, Giacomo Bonaventura and Suso in the hole, with mixed results.

Burdened by a Number 10, the midfield struggled to keep a compact shape, recover defensively and avoid becoming outnumbered or overrun, something that inevitably happened.

With Nigel de Jong serving as the playmaker before Riccardo Montolivo won his place back in the squad, Milan looked unbalanced with either one in the middle, struggling to create attacking combinations going forward and function well as a unit.

Even the standout of the bunch, Giacomo Bonaventura, was being deployed as a box-to-box midfielder, (a mezz’ala), something which didn’t cater to his natural habitat, the wing.

Lacking hunger, creativity and dynamism, the centrocampo seemed to symbolised just how wearing the club’s famous colours didn’t mean anything anymore.

With supporters growing impatient of the club’s sluggish start and beginning to ask questions of their coach,  a change from the 4-3-1-2 was desperately needed, especially after the Rossoneri were humiliated 4-0 at the Giuseppe Meazza by Napoli.

Having plunged depths that few would have predicted at the start of the season, Mihajlovic altered his tactical setup to a 4-3-3, and the results have been overly positive. Milan have now won three on the trot, the first time since April 2014 under Clarence Seedorf.

The 4-3-3 doesn’t just allow Bonaventura to return to his best role as a winger in the front three, but has also helped Alessio Cerci return to some semblance of form.

Both wide attackers’ pace and trickery help to stretch play and make life difficult for opponents. They also keep opposing fullbacks from venturing forward, weary of either player finding room in behind.

Because the 4-3-1-2 is inherently narrow, the new system has allowed Milan to play to their strengths, with the biggest difference coming in midfield. The unit looks a lot shaper, aided by the fact that there is more defensive coverage.

With Montolivo pulling the strings in midfield, he looks to play in behind his wide attackers. New signing Juraj Kucka sits on the right, adding bite and fierceness in the middle of the park in breaking up play. Andrea Bertolacci, who injured himself again after breaking his duck against Lazio, has done well to make forward runs and link midfield with attack.

Overall, Milan have made some major steps forward. Their convincing 3-1 win last weekend at the Stadio Olimpico against Lazio, beyond being their best performance to date, could herald a new dawn for Rossoneri fans, too used to disappointment over the past few years.