AC Milan coach Sinisa Mihajlovic said his side fell a goal short of producing champagne football at Palermo on Wednesday.
Milan returned from Sicily with another three points in the bag, with the 2-0 win making it 10 from their last four Serie A games.
As a result, they are now just two points adrift of fifth-placed Roma and a place in the Europa League next season, but Mihajlovic is still after more.
"We had spumante [Italian sparkling wine] in the bottle again," he is quoted as saying by Gazzetta dello Sport. "If we want it to be champagne, we've got to be winning this game 3-0.
"Having sterile phases of possession don't help you, you need to finish the game off and I told my lads at the end of the first half that we needed to finish them off.
"We never risked anything, but we still need to do the things the way they need to be done and we had two chances to do that. It was a deserved win all the same."
Thanks to their recent revival, which also includes a 1-0 win over Alessandria in the first leg of their Coppa Italia semifinal, Milan can once again think about qualifying for Europe next season.
Milan vice-president Barbara Berlusconi recently set a target of a Europa League berth, but Mihajlovic has not given up hope of a Champions League spot.
"My objective is to win game after game," he said. "Right now, we're in the Europa League reckoning and if we do well, we can aim to be in the reckoning for the Champions League. The secret is hard work and trying not to repeat the same mistakes and improve all the time."
With Roma not in action until Sunday night, Milan have the opportunity to move up to fifth when they host Udinese earlier in the day.