AC Milan's embarrassing Champions League exit the latest chapter in an awful season - so what comes next for Kyle Walker, Christian Pulisic & co. as Zlatan Ibrahimovic-led project comes crashing down?

Ibrahimovic tried to make out that Szymon Mariniak's decision to give Theo a second yellow card for diving was "harsh". It wasn't, though. It was the correct call, the kind that more referees should make when a player quite blatantly tries to con them into giving a penalty.

Ibrahimovic's ludicrous argument was that the significance of the circumstances should have been taken into account: "A yellow for simulation in a match like this... At least give a warning first." A yellow is literally a warning, though. It's hardly Mariniak's fault that Theo had already been booked for a stupid foul earlier in the game. He was merely enforcing the law.

The cold, hard truth is that Theo's dismissal was wholly justified and also, even more damningly, utterly unsurprising. The Frenchman's focus and conduct has already been called into question several times this season, so while Ibrahimovic understandably tried to defend his player, nobody else was in the mood to do likewise.

"The second yellow card is absurd," former Milan midfielder Zvonimir Boban fumed on Sky Sport Italia. "It is indecent, unsporting. You don’t do that, there’s no ifs and buts about it. But Theo Hernandez has been doing this for years and I am stunned that nobody has already told him this or corrected his behaviour."

Interestingly, there are already rumours coming out of the club that leading figures have also had enough of Theo. The defender is, on his day, one of the best left-backs in the world, and he was immense during their Serie A title triumph in 2021-22. However, he has less than 18 months left on his current contract and it's already been claimed that Milan were open to selling him during the winter window to Como, who offered €40 million (£33m/$42m) for his services, as the club is not willing to give him the raise he's demanding.

As a result, the Gazzetta dello Sport is now insisting that Theo will be fined for his costly red card against Feyenoord and then sold during the summer if another acceptable bid arrives.

Theo may not be the only big name to leave San Siro at the end of the season. Rafael Leao is undoubtedly Milan's most gifted player, but he's also come to personify the team's maddening inconsistency.

The hope was that the 25-year-old's fluctuating form this season was the fault of Fonseca. It was wishful thinking, though. While Leao was quick to pile praise on Fonseca's successor, Conceicao, he's still struggling to produce world-class performances on a regular basis.

As the Gazzetta pointed out in their match ratings, Leao was "disastrous" in the first leg against Feyenoord. Not only did he waste his team's one good chance, he also contributed absolutely nothing from a defensive perspective.

He wasn't any better at San Siro. Leao didn't create a single chance for his side and lost the ball more times (24) than any other player on the pitch. It did absolutely nothing to shake the suspicion that Milan might be better off cashing in on their highest-paid player and most valuable asset this summer in order to raise funds for increasing the overall strength of the squad.

Kyle Walker has made a positive impression on Milan fans since joining on loan from Manchester City in January. He's looked fit and focused after his recent struggles on and off the field at the Etihad, receiving plenty of praise for his professionalism and positioning.

However, there's no denying that his performances in the two games against Feyenoord sparked further fears that the Englishman can no longer quite cut it at the highest level. Walker was given a torrid time at De Kuip by Igor Paixao, while it wasn't lost on anybody in attendance that the cross that led to Carranza's killer equaliser at San Siro came from an unmarked Hugo Bueno on Milan's right-hand side.

Clearly, there were mitigating circumstances, with Milan down to 10 men at that stage, while Walker was also being commended for being the first to speak to Sky Italia after such a devastating 'defeat'.

It is that kind of leadership that could well convince Milan to sign the 34-year-old on a permanent basis this summer, particularly as the option to buy is for such a small fee (€5m) - but he'll definitely need some far more impressive performances between now and then to seal the deal.

Joao Felix may have only just arrived at Milan, but then that's precisely why Milan's embarrassingly early European hit him so hard.

"On a personal level, I wanted so much to play in the Champions League for Milan, but I only got to experience two games," the forward lamented in his post-match interview with Sky. "But we are still in the Coppa Italia semi-finals and then we also have the objective of finishing in the top four in Serie A. Win the Coppa Italia and finish in the top four - that can save our season."

Helping Milan do so would also go a hell of a long way towards ensuring that he's still at the club next season. Felix may have marked his Rossoneri debut with a goal, against Roma in the Coppa Italia quarters, but the Portuguese still has so much to prove, especially after two painfully ineffective performances against Feyenoord.

When he broke through at Benfica, Felix was touted as a generational talent. Six years on, he's regarded as one of the game's great unfulfilled talents, a serial flop still searching for a permanent home at the highest level because he's not actually shown himself to be worthy of one.

In that sense, these final three months of the 2024-25 campaign are probably as important for Felix as anyone else on Milan's roster.

Christian Pulisic's disappointment was obvious as he was taken off just after the hour mark on Tuesday. Clearly, a forward had to be sacrificed because of Theo's stupid sending-off, but the American was entitled to ask why it had to be him.

Pulisic has been Milan's most potent attacking threat this season. He has scored more goals than any of his team-mates (12) and not one of them has registered more assists (seven). It was, therefore, bizarre that Conceicao elected to leave the newly-arrived and ineffective Felix on the field and instead substitute Pulisic, who has repeatedly stepped up to the mark for Milan in big games - most recently in the Supercoppa Italiana.

However, his early withdrawal provided us with a neat snapshot of his current situation at San Siro, with Pulisic effectively paying the price for the incompetence of others.

Milan has been very, very good to the United States' poster boy. He kickstarted his career at the Meazza after his struggles at Stamford Bridge, and there's no reason for him to be thinking about leaving. Tellingly, he's previously admitted that he would like to spend his "next years" with the Rossoneri.

However, he would be wise to seek some assurances from the club that if there is to be overhaul this summer (and there really should be), next year's team will be built around him. Because Pulisic deserves better than what happened to him on Tuesday.

There was always the nagging feeling that the wild celebrations that followed Milan's Supercoppa success would eventually be used against them - and so it proved. When the back-to-back wins over Juventus and Inter were brought up in the Sky studio on Tuesday in a bid to defend the work done by Conceicao since he took over at the start of January, Boban dismissed it as a "ridiculous tournament" of zero significance.

He had a point. Milan are seven-time champions of Europe. Supercoppe have never held much sway at San Siro - so it would be wrong to think that Conceicao has sufficient credit in the back to avoid any serious scrutiny of his work so far, particularly after such a lame European exit.

However, Rossoneri legend Alessandro Costacurta was among those to argue that Conceicao couldn't be held accountable for the errors that decided the Feyenoord tie, namely goalkeeper Mike Maignan failing miserably to keep out a weak Paixao effort at De Kuip, and Theo's senseless red card in the return leg.

Conceicao also refused to throw the latter under the bus when he was being grilled by the media on Tuesday, and instead insisted that he alone was "responsible" for the failure to defeat Feyenoord. The Milan boss did, however, acknowledge that the players are feeling the weight of a heavy atmosphere at San Siro that pre-dates his arrival - and that the only way to lift the doom and gloom at the Meazza is by winning matches.

If he is unable to do that in the coming weeks, he will be at serious risk of losing his job, because while Conceicao's contract runs until June 2026, the club can reportedly cancel it at the end of the current campaign if they so wish. Basically, if Milan fail to qualify for the Champions League, then Conceicao would likely be dismissed and, unfortunately for the 50-year-old coach, Tuesday has only made his task tougher.

Just a couple of hours after Milan were dumped out of Europe, Atalanta were sent packing too, meaning Italy's hopes of securing an extra Champions League spot for next season dropped dramatically from 44 percent to 23.6%. The Rossoneri will, therefore, have to finish fourth (or higher) in Serie A and, right now, they're seventh in the standings...

Ibrahimovic isn't actually Milan's technical or sporting director, but he is, in his own words, "the boss - all the others work for me." If that's the case (and we've no reason to doubt the Swede's take on his advisory role at the club), if the buck really does stop with him, then he also has to take his share of the blame for the mess Milan presently find themselves in.

Ibrahimovic was adamant that Fonseca was "the right man" to lead the team into a new and exciting era of success, but he got that horribly wrong - and the way in which he handled the coach's dismissal was even worse.

The former striker has also made a rod for his back by claiming that the current squad, which he's had a major say in constructing, is "twice as strong" as the one built by Paolo Maldini and coached by Stefano Pioli that won the title in 2022 and reached the Champions League semi-finals the following year. So, why, then, are Milan struggling in Serie A and already out of Europe - particularly after the winter-window arrivals of Gimenez, Felix and Walker?

"Things don’t always go as you want," Ibrahimovic told Sky on Tuesday. "We weren’t satisfied and made moves in January to change the situation, but there are no guarantees."

There simply has to be evidence of improvement - and we're not actually seeing any. The season is not over yet and it can still be salvaged. But after a self-inflicted Champions League humiliation, the next few months are now make-or-break for Milan - and the Red Bird's Ibrahimovic-led project.