It's almost too easy to conjure up the Borgias.

Or the last days of the Roman Empire, with no prizes for guessing who plays Nero, fiddling away while the joint burns to a crisp. All is not well at Milan. And it's not just the fact that the Rossoneri have won just one game out of nine in all competitions since September. If that was the extent of the problem, the solution would be easy: sack the manager.

But Massimiliano Allegri can cite a whole host of mitigating circumstances for Milan's current plight. And plenty are buying them, well aware that the malaise goes deeper and that, for the first time in decades, there could be a seismic shift at the club.

Towards the end of the 2-0 home defeat to Fiorentina earlier this month Milan supporters unfurled a huge banner saying: "We told you the defence and midfield needed strengthening. You told us that fans don't decide these things. Now we see the results!"

The message wasn't directed so much at the owner, Silvio Berlusconi. Milan fans are grateful for what he has delivered over the years and have come to accept that he has turned into a kind of absentee landlord.

Preoccupied with other things - like the imminent loss of his seat in parliament after his most recent criminal conviction or the other four trials he's currently involved in - he watches from a distance, dropping in from time to time and most definitely no longer bankrolling huge losses as he did in the past.

Instead, the object of their wrath was Berlusconi's right-hand man Adriano Galliani, Milan's chief executive since 1986. He's been minding the shop during "Il Presidente's" increasingly frequent absences. And while his contribution over the years has been immense, recently he appears to have lost his mo-jo.

Hamstrung by the club's new-found adherence to Financial Fair Play, his personnel moves have been questionable at best, culminating last summer when, rather than bolstering a paper-thin back four and a midfield low on quality, he brought in three veteran retreads: Kaka, Alessandro Matri and Valter Birsa. Two bench-warmers on big wages and a guy who, in the past two seasons, had started just eight league games.

Few things happen by accident in this cloak-and-dagger world. And hours after the supporters vented their fury at Galliani, Berlusconi's daughter Barbara came out and made a statement demanding "comprehensive change" at the club.

She wasn't yet five years old when Galliani's Milan won their first European Cup back in 1989. And in recent times she made headlines more for her romance with the club's Brazilian former striker Pato than any particular business or football acumen. But now, still shy of her 30th birthday, she's determined to make her voice heard.

More than most clubs, Milan have emphasised the theme of family. Former players don't ever really go away; they keep floating back and are welcomed with open arms. The men who run the club, have been there forever: commercial director Umberto Gandini, the most recent arrival of the triumvirate at the top (the other two are Galliani and director of football Ariedo Braida) joined in 1993.

And so, the ranks of Milanisti had to take sides. Pippo Inzaghi, the former striker now in charge of the youth team, and Allegri's nemesis, is reportedly with Galliani. Former midfielder Clarence Seedorf, now finishing his career at Botafogo in Brazil, is in the Barbara camp. Both factions are wooing the legendary Paolo Maldini. Ultimately, the patriarch will decide and, for now, it seems Galliani's tenure will come to an end in the summer. But Berlusconi, especially in his old age, has been known to make 180-degree turns in his decision-making.

And so Allegri waits, wondering if by avoiding the crossfire he can maybe survive another season. To do that, he knows what he needs to do. A top-three finish and a run in the Champions League. He can take solace from the fact that this time last year Milan were 12th in Serie A and also struggling in Europe but still achieved their objective. The difference is that last season they spent £20 million-plus to pick up Mario Balotelli, who proceeded to score 12 goals in 13 games.

This year, such a mid-season injection seems highly unlikely, though reinforcements of the out-of-contract kind are on their way in the form of Japanese playmaker Keisuke Honda and enigmatic French defender Adil Rami.

And so Allegri needs to pick over the wreckage and try to find a formula that works. Balotelli has been poor this season, with injuries, suspensions and general Mario-being-Mario behaviour limiting him to three goals from open play. Kaka, the supposed saviour, isn't what he was and Allegri has tried several solutions in an attempt to reinvent him: including, bizarrely playing him in front of the back four.

Stephan El Shaarawy, a wunderkind in the first half of last year, has been hurt and has hardly contributed. The same goes for Mattia De Sciglio, another young international at full-back. The back four have looked shaky, forcing the midfield (which, in itself is nothing to write home about) to sit deeper to protect it. And that, in turn, has left an already talent-challenged frontline increasingly isolated.

Allegri has fiddled with schemes and formations but the bottom line is there is only so much you can extract from this squad. He has had to play the pride card a few too many times and when you do that eventually your words start sounding hollow.

As a player, Allegri was known as "Acciughino" - "Little Anchovy" - in part for his rail-thin body, in part for his ability to run into traffic with the ball at his feet, somehow avoiding opposing defenders and squirming his way to safety. Now that he's a manager in charge of his own team, there is more than a little irony in the fact that he's doing pretty much the same thing. And he may yet survive as a result.