The Beatles’ visit to the Netherlands as part of their first world tour in 1964 was a national sensation, with an estimated 30,000 people in Amsterdam turning out just to see them tour the canals on a tourist boat.

Six decades later, AC Milan’s own Fab Four may as well have been tourists themselves in the Rossoneri‘s 1-0 defeat against Feyenoord in the first leg of the Champions League play-offs.

As far as debuts go, this was more a case of musicians struggling to tune their guitars and forgetting the lyrics halfway through a song than whipping the crowd into a frenzy.

Sergio Conceicao is not afraid to make bold calls and he rolled the dice again on Wednesday night by starting Santiago Gimenez, Christian Pulisic, Joao Felix and Rafael Leao together for the first time.

It was a gamble partly dictated by circumstances – Yunus Musah was unavailable through suspension, Ruben Loftus-Cheek remains injured while Warren Bondo and Alex Jimenez are not included in the Champions League list – but it was a gamble nevertheless.

It was also a popular choice. A poll by La Gazzetta dello Sport this week found 68 percent of respondents wanted the Portuguese to deploy the quartet all together.

It would be negligent, so the thinking went, for Conceicao not to make the most of the attacking talent at his disposal. After all, wasn’t this why Milan spent €32m (£26.7m) on signing Gimenez from Feyenoord in the January transfer window and brought in Joao Felix on loan from Chelsea on deadline day?

The Mexican had marked his debut by coming off the bench to score in the 2-0 win over Empoli on Saturday, but he was little more than a passenger against his former side, touching the ball just 24 times in 83 minutes on the pitch.

Gimenez scored 65 goals in 105 appearances in all competitions for Feyenoord but, starved of any meaningful service, could muster only one shot off target on his return to the De Kuip.

Like Gimenez, Leao had come off the bench to score against Empoli, but was at his frustrating worst in Rotterdam.

Quite how a player so talented can swing from the sublime to the abysmal within four days remains hard to fathom and the feeling is that Conceicao, like Paulo Fonseca before him, doesn’t have an answer to this particular conundrum.

And yet, it was arguably Leao who spurned Milan’s clearest chance of the game failing to get the ball out of his feet when one vs one against Feyenoord keeper Timon Wellenreuther.

Numbers seldom paint the whole tale, but Leao’s risible xG of 0.03 – the same as Gimenez – coupled with a grand total of zero key passes completed speaks volumes for his contribution.

Between them, Milan’s quartet completed four key passes in 90 minutes and had three shots on goal, with Felix responsible for each of them. This was Fabulous in name only.

So often the Rossoneri’s brightest light, Pulisic’s presence on the pitch barely registered. With an xG of 0.00 and just 36 touches, the American was a peripheral figure throughout and was hooked after 60 minutes while Felix, who like Pulisic had started against Empoli, was the only member of the foursome to play the whole 90 minutes.

The Portuguese was arguably the best of the four, taking 51 touches and having three shots on goal while completing 19 of his 26 passes.

It was, however, far too little in the grand scheme of things.

As Conceicao pointed out after the final whistle, there were mitigating circumstances.

Gimenez and Felix have had precious little time to get acquainted with their teammates after joining last week and his decision to veer away from his trusted 4-3-3 was influenced by the circumstances as much as it was by the attacking talent at his disposal.

“Would I make the same attacking choices?,” he said in his post-match press conference, which was cut abruptly short after just one quetion.

“It’s easy to second-guess decisions after the game, but I made the call I thought was best at the time. It’s my job to select the team and find the right balance, and that’s what I tried to do.”

Milan’s usual shortcomings were laid bare by Feyenoord. Stung by Igor Paixao’s goal three minutes in, the Rossoneri again allowed a game to almost pass them by and when they did create chances, they couldn’t convert them.

It was a frustrating case of deja vu for Conceicao, who lamented his team’s lack of intensity after the dismal defeat in Zagreb two weeks ago that condemned Milan to the play-offs.

“We were simply not aggressive enough,” he said.

“The players need to recognise their weaknesses and work on them quickly. Time is running out.”

Musah will be available for the second leg at the San Siro next week, when Conceicao may decide to return to his preferred 4-3-3. If Wednesday night was anything to go by, don’t expect Milan’s Fab Four to get another gig anytime soon.