AC Milan's fortunes in recent years have plummeted at a staggering rate. Seven times the champions of Europe and winners of Serie A on 18 occasions, the Rossoneri have been a shadow of their former selves over the last four seasons.
Their lack of success has hardly come out of nowhere though, with signs developing for some time that the combination of a flagging resource base and the Financial Fair Play laws would hit Milan more than most.
Finishing 10th in Serie A in 2014-15 should be the nadir from which they rise again. It was a season which was conditioned by a number of aspects, although most of them were self-inflicted, beginning with the underwhelming impact of Filippo Inzaghi as coach. After ousting Clarence Seedorf, the club's board would have expected far better than scraping into the top half of the table come the season's end.
That said, little was truly done on the transfer market to warrant anything better. Jeremy Menez was an excellent addition, so too Diego Lopez, but none of their other deals spoke of a big-club mentality. The Fernando Torres signing smacked of desperation, Giacomo Bonaventura is a classy player but still some way short of a figurehead for a Champions League chaser, and moves bringing Suso, Marco van Ginkel, Salvatore Bocchetti and Gabriel Paletta to the club showed little imagination. Even Alessio Cerci's signing came six months late, adding a player scarred by failure at Atletico Madrid rather than one buoyed by success with Torino.
The 2015 summer market will have to be far more convincing than either of the efforts of last term, and with 500 million of new investment set to be added by Thai entreprenuer Bee Taechaubol, there will be big funds available this summer.
Exactly how to spend the new cash is the club's big quandry.