Arsenal versus Milan – doing the undoable. « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Phil Gregory

It’s a breakfast blog from me as, were it not for somebody mentioning the Milan game is today not Wednesday in the Untold comments, I would have got the day of the game wrong. Breakfast blog may be a slightly misleading title, as I’m really hoping to get this done before my 10am lecture (on Current Topics in European Integration – how current can you get?) but if not it won’t go live until lunchtime when I’m back from classes briefly.

Anyway, Milan. We’ve got a 4-0 aggregate score to overcome. There’s no way we’ll put out a rotation side, as we’re in a situation where we want to maximise our chance of getting through, and should we not achieve that, we’ll be aiming to give a good account of ourselves and get as good a result as possible to restore jilted pride.

Since Liverpool, we’ve lost Benayoun, while Diaby picked up one of those niggly injuries that are common occurrences when players are out for a lengthy period of time. Arteta too is out after Henderson’s bit of idiocy for which he has escaped any form of sanction from the FA, which is bizarre.  Wenger mentioned there was a knock to Kieran Gibbs which, given the lack of another left back, would force another defensive reshuffle, so hopefully the youngster is fit for this evening.  Tomas Rosicky, one of our last midfielders left standing, is rated as doubtful: fingers crossed he passes his fitness test!

Szcznesy

Sagna Koscielny Vermaelen Gibbs

Walcott     Song   Rosicky   Gervinho

Van Persie Chamakh

The team is real guesswork, given the plan to switch formation. Even with a change of personnel to account for us only having two central midfielders – being optimistic, I’m assuming Rosicky is fit to play – so balance goes completely out of the window. While the middle two has a reasonable balance – both work hard and are capable of covering the ground, while there is also a natural equilibrium between Rosicky’s attacking prowess and Song’s defensive covering. The balance falls apart on the flanks. Rarely would a team try and go with what are two wingers/attackers on the flanks, as defensively we will be very vulnerable when we don’t have the ball.

I suppose one possibility is playing Van Persie nominally in midfield in the attacking midfielder role, but really the 442 that I’ve put together above achieves something similar, with Van Persie dropping off Chamakh.

The defence will be exposed throughout the game given we are effectively playing five attacking players, and no doubt Song will get involved in attacks too! To keep a clean sheet, the back four and goalkeeper will need to play a collective blinder, keeping Milan’s attackers who did so much damage to us in the first leg completely nullified, while also ably supporting the attack in the case of the full backs.

I’m running out of time so I won’t talk too much more. The big, big worry is going to be the space in front of our defence. We need to go all out attack to restore some respectability to the aggregate score and give us a chance of getting through, and that is going to mean that we push players forward. Milan’s attackers were very, very dangerous dropping off our defence and playing in behind, so our aggressive approach will unfortunately play into their hands in this regard.

Our main hope has to be that we can get a couple of quickfire goals and then put the fear into them. Our biggest weapon is the fact that we’re at the Emirates, the pitch will be fantastic so we can play our scintillating football that has blown top sides away at the Emirates in Europe recently. If we can put in a season-best performance, play without fear and grab a couple of goals, we can put the fear into Milan that they will throw the aggregate away – as they have done once or twice in their recent history – and if they play within themselves with that in mind… maybe, just maybe.