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Arsenal vs AC Milan 20th February 2008 - Champions League Rd 2 Leg 1 - Emirates Stadium It’s games like tonight that make being a football fan worth it. The European Champions are coming to the Emirates and it’s going to be a special night. I’m confident we can win too and after Saturday’s debacle we must win. AC Milan are the current holders but they are a slow team. It will be experience vs youth and I think we can come out on top. The team tonight is: Jens Lehmann William Gallas Bacary Sagna Gael Clichy Emmanuel Eboue (Theo Walcott 89) Kolo Toure (Philippe Senderos 7) Cesc Fabregas Mathieu Flamini Alexander Hleb Emmanuel Adebayor Eduardo (Nicklas Bendtner 73) AC Milan have Kaka playing for them and he was voted the best player of the world and it will be good to see him in the flesh, hopefully in William Gallas' pocket! The AC Milan team is: Zeljko Kalac Massimo Oddo Kakha Kaladze Paolo Maldini Alessandro Nesta (Marek Jankulovski 50) Massimo Ambrosini Ivan Gattuso Kaka Clarence Seedorf (Emerson 85) Andrea Pirlo Alexandre Pato (Alberto Gilarbino 77) I’m about 5 minutes late tonight for no reason whatsoever(!) so the match had kicked off as I made the way to my seat. It's still 0-0 but Arsenal are on the attack so I’m happy. We continue to dominate possession for the start of the match but after only 7 minutes Kolo Toure is injured from what looked like nothing but he goes off for treatment. The ball was drilled in by a Milan player and just appeared to hit his thigh with a stinging slap from a cold ball that all boys have encountered on a football pitch at some point. We are down to ten men while Toure is receiving treatment and during this time comes Milan’s best chance. A corner kick taken by Clarence Seedorf is powerfully headed goalwards by the evergreen legend that is Paulo Maldini but an excellent save is produced by Lehman. We are let off with a warning of the threat of Milan from players in any position. Kolo’s injury must be more serious than it looked though as he needs to go off for treatment and is subsequently replaced by Phillip Senderos. This doesn’t detract from the performance as we continue to keep the ball. We pass the ball very well around the final third but without many shots on target, or of note, and the match continues like this until half time. Half-Time I am confident that we have we can win this match. We have shown in the first half that we can match Milan in every position and in fact we dominated the opening 45 minutes. The match starts in similar way to the last half ended, with Arsenal in full control. We have few chances on goal and we are finding it difficult to break down the stubborn AC Milan defence. We nearly get a goal from a miss-hit Kaka header which looks to be going in to his own net but it goes inches wide. We start playing more direct and these seems to be our best form of attack. There are countless long balls to Adebayor from all over the pitch and from some of these we get some shots on target as Milan struggle to cope with his pace and power. For about 10 minutes we have Milan on the rack. They can’t get out of their own half and have started making mistakes. They are like a fighter on the ropes taking a battering. Their legs have gone and they are vulnerable as we keep pressing but we cant find the knockout punch. Milan recover though and on the hour mark they have a couple of chances themselves. I start thinking that they will nick a goal and a win in a match which we have dominated. I am not alone and a nervous cloud sweeps though the crowd and the tension heightens. It is now us on the ropes but as we approach the final ten minutes we are able recover our dominance. There are shots for Adebayor and Cesc has a couple too. Bendtner blasts over the bar with only a minute left. The board goes up for 4 minutes of injury time and it’s all Arsenal. Theo has played well and it’s his cross to Adebayor that looks to have setup the winner but Adebayor can only head against the woodwork and the final whistle blows. The important thing is that we didn’t concede and it means that if we score in Milan then they will need two because of the away goals. We showed that we are as good as Milan, arguably better, and we have nothing to be afraid of. |
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