Serie A: AC Milan Crisis Deepens As Rivals Inter Turn Up Heat

AC Milan travel to lowly Verona on Friday looking for some festive cheer as the seven-time kings of Europe battle inconsistent form and fan anger while local rivals and Serie A champions Inter Milan hit their stride.

AC Milan travel to lowly Verona on Friday looking for some festive cheer as the seven-time kings of Europe battle inconsistent form and fan anger while local rivals and Serie A champions Inter Milan hit their stride. Expectant Milan supporters demand excitement and trophies and this season has so far provided very little of the former and is unlikely to end with the latter. Paulo Fonseca's side sit eighth in Italy's top flight, 14 points behind league leaders Atalanta -- albeit with a game in hand -- and are in disarray, with the coach seemingly at the end of his tether just six months into his San Siro tenure.

The Portuguese has had open conflict with senior players and questioned his squad's commitment, repeatedly going after countryman and star winger Rafael Leao and dropping France full-back Theo Hernandez for a teenage academy player in last weekend's dismal goalless draw with Genoa.

Meanwhile fans are on a war footing, attacking the owners on Saturday when a celebration of the club's 125th birthday was marred not just by a poor match and the very obvious absence of Paolo Maldini among the iconic players parading on the pitch, but also chants demanding US investment fund RedBird sell up.

Supporters then turned up outside a private party for the anniversary, barracking most of the arriving players and displaying banners with messages like "a club with no ambition, you're not worthy of our history".

A by-product of those vociferous protests is that Fonseca takes Milan to Verona with his job reportedly on the line, with Italian media floating the likes of former national team boss Roberto Mancini as replacement should they leave the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi with anything less than three points.