For a side supposedly in crisis, AC Milan responded with a passion and vigour against Inter that’s been lacking in previous outings. 

You got the feeling that if they played Inter every week, they wouldn’t be languishing outside the European places.

The two sides battled to a 1-1 draw in the third Derby della Madonnina of the season that, in truth, does little for either side.

For Inter, it’s two points dropped in their fight with Napoli for the Scudetto. For Milan, they’re now five points behind Juventus in fourth spot in Serie A. A win was very much needed for both, but they had to settle for a point.

Inter could feel hard done by come the end of an absorbing 90 minutes that ebbed and flowed. The Nerazzurri hit the post three times and the same number in disallowed goals.

Inter were the superior force throughout much of the game, especially in the second half, and Milan can feel some measure of fortune, but the Rossoneri answered some of their critics with a spirited display.

League form doesn’t factor into derbies. This has been the refrain in football for decades, and it was echoed by both Beppe Marotta and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the build-up.

“A derby is a derby,” said Ibrahimovic. “You win if you face it with a great mentality. It’s more than a match, it’s two great clubs on the pitch.”

Marotta repeated much of what his counterpart said. “The derby has a flavour that’s different from any other matches,” he said. “The table doesn’t count for anything in this context.”

Inter went into the game second in Serie A, with Milan further back in eighth. Yet Marotta is schooled enough to know when it comes to this fixture positions don’t matter.  

“The sixteen-point gap is just on paper,” said the Inter President. And both were right.

Amid the constant din that reverberated around the iconic old Stadio Giuseppe Meazza for 90 minutes, Milan’s home support spurred on Sergio Conceicao’s side to produce a performance full of grit.

This was personified best when Fikayo Tomori, who’d just hours before rejected a move to Tottenham, blocked a shot from Marcus Thuram with only seven minutes remaining, and the Englishman pumped up the crowd by roaring in defiance, promptly joined by his defensive centre-back partner Pavlovic, who went chest-to-chest with Tomori in solidarity.

Much had been made of the crisis engulfing Milan in recent weeks. The club had seemingly been owning up to their questionable summer transfer window by attempting to offload Emerson Royal — only for the player to suffer a long-term injury — and offloading Alvaro Morata to Galatasaray six months after his arrival.

The defeat by Dinamo Zagreb in midweek denied the club a place in the Champions League round of 16 and now forces the club to go through the play-off. Moreover, there had been speculation that many of the players had been unhappy with Conceicao’s style of management, with the former Porto manager a more abrasive character than his Portuguese predecessor, Paulo Fonseca.

His players performed, but it also feeds into the valid claim that these Milan players can only perform in the biggest games.

Stefan De Vrij’s late, very late, equaliser will feel like a defeat for the Rossoneri and Conceicao. “We feel like we lost two points,” said Reijnders after the game.

It’s hard not to agree with the Dutchman, who netted Milan’s goal and his seventh league goal of the season, a midfielder that’s emerged as one of the best signings made by the club in recent years.

For Inter, there’s also the feeling of two points lost despite De Vrij’s late goal. It was clear Inter were the better side for the majority of the contest. Some brilliant link-up play between Lautaro Martinez, Marcus Thuram, Denzel Dumfries on the right and Federico Dimarco on the other flank punctuated the game, but it didn’t look like Inter would score a legitimate goal as the minutes ticked by.

Dumfries, Thuram and Yann Bisseck all struck the post — the same post — in the second half with Mike Maignan beaten. Yet the ‘away’ side had the support of the Curva Nord at the same end, and the fanatical support in the second tier willed Inter to continue attacking until the end.

In the end, the goal was more than deserved, something Conceicao admitted post-game. Napoli’s draw with Roma made Inter’s evening somewhat more palatable. The gap remains three points with the Nerazzurri still having a game in hand.

It could’ve been worse for Inter, but it also could’ve been better. It’s proof, if ever needed, that form truly goes out the window when it comes to a derby.