Gennaro Gattuso has given some memorable post-game interviews down the years. Who could forget his “sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit” rant at OFI Crete, or the face of the beleaguered interpreter tasked with translating it? Last year, not long before taking charge of the Italian national team, Gattuso got into a finger-jabbing, language-swapping, almost-nose-to-nose shouting match with Josko Jelicic on Croatian television.

And yet there was something more affecting about the soft way he spoke this Saturday, in Calabrian-accented Italian. Without anger, but with an air of melancholy. “For me, football without fans is shit,” he said. “What do you think? I’d say it’s better to stay home. Better to go for a walk with the dogs.”

He had just seen his Lazio side let a two-goal lead slip at home to Milan, but that was hardly a disaster. The Biancocelesti are still top of the table, at least until Roma and Inter play on Monday. For a team who lost several starters in the summer, who began Gattuso’s tenure with a cup defeat to a club from Serie B in August, and whose fans refuse to enter their own stadium, this season has so far exceeded expectations.

It might represent the beginnings of a redemption arc for Gattuso, who stood down from managing the Italy men’s national team in April after failing to qualify for the World Cup. He was not a popular choice to succeed Maurizio Sarri in Rome. Yet he is also not the reason why supporters are boycotting Lazio’s home games in huge numbers. Season ticket sales have fallen from close to 30,000 last year to less than 4,500, according to the football finances website Calcio e Finanza. Last season’s home game against Milan drew 50,000 spectators, but the same fixture on Saturday had less than half that number, with a noisy majority cheering for the visitors.

Lazio’s fans have not stopped caring. Hundreds gathered outside the team’s training ground before the Milan game, forming a convoy of mopeds to escort the players’ bus to Ponte Milvio – a bridge that crosses the Tiber River close to the Stadio Olimpico. A statement released by organised supporters’ groups beforehand had announced their intention to go from there “to watch the game in a pub or at home”.

It is an act of protest specifically against the club’s owner, Claudio Lotito. Supporters have travelled in their thousands to away games, even for unglamorous pre-season friendlies, reinforcing the message that they still care about their club, but do not want to endorse the man who controls it.

The feud with Lotito is not new. In January, an open letter was posted to the website Change.org accusing him of denying fans the right to dream throughout his more-than two decades as owner. “It has been years, almost seven, since we lifted a trophy,” reads the petition, signed by more than 45,000 people. “These are years in which we have not signed a footballer to stir the heart of fans young and old.”

There are layers to these grievances. The letter references the club’s handling of a memorial for Vincenzo Paparelli, a Lazio supporter killed by a flare fired from the Roma end during a derby in 1979. Lotito was accused of denying Paparelli’s niece a chance to walk on to the pitch during an event last November. He denied that version of events at the time, saying “the real problem was that four representatives of the organised support wanted to go with her”.

Lotito has at other times been accused of simply not paying attention to Lazio while his focus is elsewhere. He is active in politics, having been elected to the Italian senate in 2022.

He bought another football club, Salernitana, in 2011, and over the next 10 years helped them to get promoted from Serie D to the top-flight, at which point he was forced to sell up due to the conflict of interest created by having two teams in the same league. Italian football’s rules have since been modified to prevent simultaneous ownership of two teams in the top three divisions, but that did not deter Lotito from completing the takeover of another fourth-tier club, Reggina, this summer.

Have such investments kept him from pursuing the big-name signings Lazio supporters crave? It’s not exactly clearcut. Lazio could not have bought anyone last summer anyway, as they were placed under a transfer embargo for failing to meet liquidity requirements introduced by the Italian Football Federation. These, too, were the subject of debate, as Lotito argued they failed to weigh the club’s successes in operating without major outstanding debts.

Navigating those rules required selling a string of important players – Taty Castellanos and Mattéo Guendouzi in January, Mario Gila, Alessio Romagnoli and Ivan Provedel in the summer. But after the embargo was lifted, Lazio did make some canny signings. Centre-back Danilho Doekhi arrived from Union Berlin on a free transfer, striker Albert Gudmundsson came in on loan from Fiorentina, as did midfielder Davide Frattesi from Inter.

The last of those looks like an absolute steal, secured for a €5m loan fee this season, with a right to buy for €10m next year. Frattesi cost Inter more than twice that much when they signed him off the back of a break-out season at Sassuolo in 2023, only to keep him for the next three years as understudy to Nicolò Barella, Hakan Calhanoglu and others in a stacked midfield.

After joining Lazio this summer, Frattesi – still just 26 – said he had deliberately chosen a club that would put the weight on his shoulders. He scored in each of his first three games for his new club: winners against Bologna and Genoa, then the opener in a 2-1 victory away to Udinese.

He did not find the net this weekend. This time, Lazio’s best attacking work originated from Mattia Zaccagni on the left wing. He had a cross converted at the back post by Matteo Cancellieri in the 10th minute, then another forced home at the second attempt by Tijjani Noslin after a defender knocked it on to the crossbar. Zaccagni had a close-range attempt of his own well saved by Mike Maignan in-between.

It could have been a rout. Instead, Milan made three substitutions at half-time, and one of the players introduced, the €50m signing Diego Moreira, scored a pair of fine goals to ensure the game finished 2-2.

Might things have gone differently in a stadium packed with Lazio supporters, instead of one that felt like Milan’s home away from home? “Maybe with our fans here we would have managed to hold out,” said Zaccagni. “But the draw is a fair result in the end.”

Gattuso thanked the fans who had come to show their support beforehand. “I don’t think anyone is happy with this situation,” he said. “I think everyone wants to come to the stadium, to have 50,000 people, 55,000 people.

“I think those fans came [to the training ground] because they recognise what the players are giving them. The fact of not giving up. The fact they are wearing the shirt with pride. That’s my reading. And that made me emotional today, seeing the people who came. It’s not football without the fans.”