Milan's might fades just when it matters most

A week is a long time in football especially at this stage of the season.

In the space of a few days Chelsea went from the joy of their first English title for 50 years to the shock of an unexpected exit from the Champions League at the hands of Liverpool.

Jose Mourinho's side have all summer to gather their thoughts now and put the semi-final loss to their English rivals into context. But Milan have no such luxury as they try to recover from a week in which their entire season almost crumbled.

Milan's consistency this season made a Champions League final and a race to the wire for the Serie A title look like a near certainty and a rare domestic and European double a strong possibility.

Two defeats last week for Carlo Ancelotti's side went close to ending both these goals and there is the chance that Milan could end the season without a single piece of silverware. All is not lost, though, and as Ancelotti keeps reminding his players.

They are in the final of the Champions League where they will face Liverpool in Istanbul on May 25 and they are only three points behind Juventus in Serie A with three games to go.

But in a sport where momentum and confidence play such a big role there is no doubt that Milan were badly shaken by last week's losses.

First there was the 'defeat that wasn't' in the Netherlands. Milan lost 3-1 to Dutch side PSV Eindhoven in the semi-final, second leg having been outplayed.

Trailing 2-0 and looking a weary second best, the Italians managed a late goal through Massimo Ambrosini which after their 2-0 victory in the first leg at the San Siro was enough to send them through even though PSV immediately struck a third.

No neutral viewer of both legs of that tie would disagree that Milan were extremely fortunate to make it past PSV.

Even in the first leg, PSV had half a dozen good chances at 1-0 down to get an equaliser and an away goal which would have transformed the tie.

Then last Sunday, still appearing battle-weary from their trauma in Eindhoven, Milan were punchless and guileless as they lost 1-0 at home to Juve in what had been billed as the 'title decider'.

As usual in Italy the hype was over the top - Juve's win makes them strong favourites now but if they slip up against Parma today and Milan triumph at Lecce it is level-pegging again.

Nonetheless, Milan's performance was that of a team looking low on energy and confidence and running out of steam at exactly the wrong stage of the season.

Milan spend a fortune on their physical and medical preparation team, known as 'Milan Lab', and have a programme designed to have the top players in peak condition for the right moments of the campaign.

But not even the undoubted talents assembled at the plush Milanello training centre can forecast how players will cope with a heavy schedule of fighting on two fronts, always complicated by suspensions and injuries.

There has been plenty for Ancelotti to worry about in the days since the defeats by Juventus and PSV.

Firstly his defence, which set a new record going seven Champions League games without conceding a goal, suddenly looked fragile against PSV's pace and conceded as many goals in those 90 minutes as they had in the entire Champions League campaign prior to that match.

Against Juventus, the midfield failed to function as they can - illustrating once again that if the vision and passing ability of the deep-lying Andrea Pirlo can be neutralised then Milan struggle.

Clarence Seedorf has hit a dreadful patch of form and for the first time during Ancelotti's charge a Milan player was singled out for jeers from the San Siro crowd.

Without quality service, the goal-scoring qualities of European Footballer of the Year Andriy Shevchenko are obviously much less of a threat and suddenly he looks short of a partner.

Tomasson has his qualities but is not Ancelotti's first choice while Hernan Crespo, despite some vital goals this season, still looks a long way short of the player who scored so freely for Parma and Lazio before his ill-fated moves to Inter and Chelsea.

Filippo Inzaghi is back on the bench after a season in which he has struggled against injuries but there are doubts as to whether he is in the condition to make a swift impact at this stage of the campaign.

It would be stupid to write off Milan though. Ancelotti's side have recovered from such slumps in form before and have also proved capable of grinding out vital results even when below par.

But Liverpool coach Rafael Benitez, a man who in the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the Champions League spotted all the weak points in Juventus and Chelsea and was able to get his team to exploit them, will have seen much to encourage him from the past week.