That was the best I have ever seen Arsenal play away from home in Europe. Ac Milan were made to look rather ordinary, not the mighty European champions that they are. It was a great team performance as well, true, some individuals were better than others, however everyone worked for each other and everyone showed immense discipline over the ninety minutes.Milan started strongly with lots of early pressure, a few corners and a couple of near misses, Pato missing their best chance when he tamely pooped one into Almunia's hands. From around the twenty minute mark it was one way traffic, Milan couldn't get hold off the ball, and we tried to knock down their front door. Fabregas struck the bar, while Adebayor, Senderos and Eboue all had great chances to take the lead. Strangely as the game wore on, Milan didn't come back into it, Fabregas let fly from thirty yards and beat Kalac low down to his right, then Walcott skipped clear on the right to set up Adebayor for a well worked second. 2-0 to the Arsenal.
Tactically Wenger got it spot on tonight, we were defensively solid with Gallas and Sagna particularly good, while our pressing as a unit meant that Milan were forced into hopeful long balls time and time again. Our youthful energy and skill was too much for the Milanese veterans. Our central midfield trio of Hleb, Fabregas and Flamini were everywhere, using the ball sensibly and harrying the opposition. While Adebayor showed how to lead a line up front.
The referee's pathetic decisions do not deserve a mention this morning, it makes the win even more impressive as we had to overcome his incompetence as well as the opposition's efforts. Arsene will be proud this morning and rightly so, not many English sides can go away to the best sides and dominate in such a fashion. Magnificent.
3 comments:
Unbelievably accomplished performance, particularly given the dip in form of recent weeks. The boys showed that while form is temporary, class is permanent.
There were so many heroes. Fabregas and Adebayor will naturally grab the headlines but Flamini, once again, was immense. Hleb was full of clever passes and tackled back manfully. Almunia swept up with distinction behind a very solid back four. Senderos played like the Tony Adams we have always hoped he might be. Theo's cameo at the end was pure class.
Immensely proud to be an Arsenal fan today. Thanks to the boys for making my 29th birthday one to remember.
Finally, a word about the Milan fans - they were gracious in defeat and admirably applauded us off the pitch. I would like to think we would've done the same.
happy birthday k man, only a year off the big one!
it's impressive that they applauded us off in such fashion, something I hope we would do as you say, but not if it was against Manu, maybe a dignified silence would be better!
loved it.........i absolutely loved it. it was perfect. i must have missed atleast 25 heartbeats in the first 25 mins bt after tht it was all arsenal. there wer flashes by ac milan. pato,kaka,maldini,pirlo- full credit to 'em but arsenal were at another level, a level where even ac milan (mind u, ac milan) couldnt touch them. this will multiply there morale 10 folds if not more and i can bet that this team is going to pull off sumthin wich will shock the entire footballing world keeping in mind pundits predicted that we'd be knocked off the top 4 by spurs or newcastle. we have ntin to lose. i can just imagine wtll happen in the qaurters with rvp, kolo 'the wall' toure and rosicky back.
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