For AC Milan supporters, the 2015-16 season has been a difficult one. Due to the team’s frustrating inconsistency, any hopes of challenging for the Scudetto or returning to the UEFA Champions League were extinguished early on.

However, there remains plenty to be excited about for the future.

In recent years, Milanisti have had to put up with hugely underwhelming mid-table finishes, no continental competition or silverware and the sale of the club’s best young talent. The good news is that now, in all of these respects, the outlook appears vastly different.

Since Sinisa Mihajlovic was appointed as coach last summer, Milan have had an upturn in fortunes on the pitch. While he has yet to implement a clear tactical vision at the San Siro and his team is not a particularly attractive one to watch, they are functional. This in itself is an improvement on previous seasons.

Perhaps in the main because—unlike his predecessors, Filippo Inzaghi and Clarence Seedorf—the Serbian is a qualified coach with previous managerial experience under his belt, the Rossoneri are now more effective.

Aesthetically, the current Milan team aren’t going to be compared to Arrigo Sacchi’s iconic side of the 1980s and 1990s—or even Carlo Ancelotti’s version in the 2000s—any time soon, but their results are better than they have been in several years.

After 30 Serie A fixtures, they sit sixth in the league table with 49 points, a tally attained through 13 wins and 10 draws, with just seven defeats against them. This compares favourably to their standings at the same stage in 2014-15 and 2013-14.

At this point last season, Milan were eighth with three fewer wins, one more loss and seven less points. The campaign before, they were 12th with a mere 39 points and more defeats (11) than they had wins or draws.

Put simply, the Rossoneri’s results have got better since Mihajlovic came in, suggesting that the team is moving forward—even if they are doing so gradually and without any clear identity.

Their current league position also puts them in the frame for a return to European football through the UEFA Europa League.

Milan fans have missed the midweek trips to foreign lands, and the club as a whole has no doubt suffered from being absent from continental competition. As it stands, however, with a four-point gap separating Mihajlovic’s men from seventh-placed Sassuolo, this could change next season.

At the beginning of this campaign, the Rossoneri’s aim was to achieve a top-three position and seal Champions League football. This is highly unlikely now, though it seems that the club’s objectives have changed as a result.

Per Football Italia, in a press conference prior to January’s 3-0 win over Inter Milan in the Derby della Madonnina, the club’s joint-chief executive Barbara Berlusconi stated: “We have to be honest and direct with the fans. The target is the Europa League, we think we can do it and next year get into the Champions League.”

Qualification for European football’s secondary competition is something the club could obtain not only through their Serie A position. Once the league season is complete, the Coppa Italia final will take place on Saturday, 21 May. Milan will be contestants alongside reigning Italian champions Juventus.

After progressing beyond Perugia, Crotone, Sampdoria, Carpi and Alessandria to reach the cup final, the Rossoneri are now just one win away from silverware. As well as sealing a place in Europe, victory would also secure the club’s first trophy since their Supercoppa Italiana win in 2011.

Milan have already achieved subtle improvements in both results and league position this season, but combining a return to European football with triumph in the Coppa Italia would be a serious statement of intent, one of a club firmly back on an upward trajectory.

Arguably the most exciting aspect of the current team is the promise of several young players within the current first-team squad.

Seventeen-year-old goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma is perhaps the most obvious symbol of what Milanisti can look forward to going forward. In a position where players usually don’t establish themselves until their mid-20s and don’t peak until their early 30s, he has already established himself as a regular starter.

Even the incumbent Italy and Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has been impressed by the youngster, per ESPN FC:

He is definitely a top goalkeeper. To be … able to handle that kind of media pressure is important and rare.

I’m happy, because he’s being protected and growing adequately, despite the enormous pressure that has been created for him.

Donnarumma’s potential is extraordinary considering he has, quite feasibly, two decades of football ahead of him but has already produced crucial performances between the posts. And he isn’t the only prospect that Milan fans can look forward to watching for years to come.

In front of him, Alessio Romagnoli has matured over the course of his first season with the club since joining from AS Roma last summer. He is an improving physical force and, with his refined left foot, has what it takes to become an elite ball-playing centre-back at just 21 years of age.

Mihajlovic can take credit for the development of both Donnarumma, who he promoted to the first team this season, and Romagnoli, who he had previously worked with at Sampdoria.

The coach has also utilised 19-year-old right-back Davide Calabria, while another Primavera graduate, Manuel Locatelli, was promoted in February.

Striker M’Baye Niang, 21, has also benefitted from the coach’s presence. After a spell on loan at Genoa last season, he was introduced to the Milan starting lineup in November and hasn’t looked back.

The Frenchman was recently ruled out for the rest of the campaign due to injuries sustained in a car crash, but his five goals in 16 league appearances represent his best tally for the club.

When asked about Mihajlovic’s influence, Niang was effusive in his praise.

“I have an excellent rapport with the coach,” he told Sky Sport Italia (h/t Football Italia). “He makes me work hard and we got on from the first day we met. He can help me in many different ways. Milan really needed a coach like Mihajlovic.”

In addition to the promise of flourishing young talent, the Rossoneri are in possession of an increasingly strong core of players who will be vital to the club in the ongoing process of rejuvenation.

This core includes Luca Antonelli and Ignazio Abate, the 29-year-old full-backs who have been two of the most consistent players in Mihajlovic’s squad this season, as well as Giacomo Bonaventura, a 25-year-old midfield technician, and Carlos Bacca, a 29-year-old striker with a clinical finish.

All four of these players are in or approaching their prime, and they could be joined by Andrea Bertolacci.

The 25-year-old playmaker has floundered with injury and underperformance for much of his first year with Milan but remains a talent and—if used correctly—could become just as vital to the club’s near future as Abate, Antonelli, Bonaventura and Bacca.

This core of players, alongside the aforementioned young generation, could fuse to form an impressive team perhaps capable of challenging for the title and reaching the Champions League in years to come, however they must be given the appropriate direction in order to do so.

That remains up in the air, with speculation over Mihajlovic’s future as club coach rife throughout much of his first term in charge. However, he still has a year left on his contract, and it would be worth allowing him to see out the deal with this crop of players.

The change may be slower than hoped, but it is happening. Milan are on the up and, if this ascension continues over the next few years, the club can reasonably aim to return to the top of Serie A and compete in the Champions League.

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