Milan coach Leonardo was literally left speechless by his team's dire 1-1 draw at 10-man Atalanta on Sunday.
Having screamed and shouted at his struggling side from the touchline, he lost his voice, leaving assistant Mauro Tassotti to face the post-match media inquisition.
Had Brazilian Leonardo faced the press he would have had to fend off uncomfortable questions about his team's deficiencies for the fourth match in a row.
The statistics make sorry reading.
In their last four matches in Europe and at home they have drawn twice and lost twice, scoring just one goal - that was on Sunday against 10-man Atalanta.
Milan have only two wins in seven league matches and one solitary goal at home.
And this is a team with the likes of Pato, Ronaldinho, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Filippo Inzaghi and Marco Borriello, not to mention the creative elements of Andrea Pirlo and Clarence Seedorf.
Against Atalanta, Milan fell behind after some defensive uncertainty allowed Simone Tiribocchi to open the scoring midway through the first half.
About 10 minutes before the interval Ivan Radovanovic was dismissed for a stupid second bookable offence, leaving his team to face Milan's pressure for almost an hour with a numerical disadvantage.
That they got to within seven minutes of doing so owed more to Milan's ineptitude as an attacking unit than any great heroic defensive display - in truth, Atalanta had very few close shaves.
But despite substitute Ronaldinho saving the day for the seven-time European champions, centre-back Alessandro Nesta, who provided the defence-splitting pass, was scathing after the game.
"Have we bounced back? This was a game we had to win. They had 10 men, we have to be humble and understand that," he said.
"Problems are resolved when you win. Was it bad luck? What bad luck? There was too much confusion in our attacking play, we lost the ball and were hit on the counter-attack.
"We've lost the right distances (between the lines) and we have to find them. All we need to do now is just start getting results."
That is proving much easier said than done this season in which Milan have found the net only four times in seven league matches and a paltry six times in nine games in all competitions.
But Nesta insisted the blame should not lie at Leonardo's feet.
"It's a difficult moment but we're right behind Leonardo. You win and you lose all together. It's not one single person's failure," he said.
Tassotti admitted the pressure was getting to Milan and claimed they had never fully recovered from their humbling 4-0 defeat and footballing lesson at the hands of city rivals Inter in their second game of the season.
"We have pressure on us coming from inside and we're paying for that psychologically," he said.
"We conceded a goal from their first shot. That's one area we have many problems, that's clear, but I don't think we were that bad once they went down to 10 men.
"We showed we could play against Siena and then Marseille (two of their three wins this season). (But) the derby defeat hit us hard and we've lost our way a bit."