AC Milan

In this version of the fairy tale, the big bad wolf eats Red Hooding Ride and says to the 5000 odd Gooners who travelled to Milan, “Now you weren’t expecting that were you?”

No, they weren’t, neither were any of us watching at home. This was as bad as (that day that shall not be mentioned) one of our August performances. It’s all very well papering over the cracks but when your main players in both midfield and defence all decide that this is the day to get eaten, all the papering in the world can’t help. And for us to go out on that pitch with a team selected to get goals or at least a goal was not the most clever strategy. For once we should have just parked the bus even if we don’t like playing that way. It surely couldn’t have been worse?

The fairy tale also probably wasn’t helped by the Denis Bergkamp/ Alan Smith interview published yesterday in which Bergkamp observed icily: “You need a few strong characters who can get the team going, in training as well as matches. Sometimes you need more of a winning mentality than a passing mentality. I’m not sure Arsenal have enough of that in their players, when the attitude becomes more important than the ability just to pass the ball.” The timing of this release was appalling. So appropriate given that last night we had 58% of the possession. Unfortunately most of that possession was doing the sideways backways shuffle.

After a promising first 3 minutes, Theo actually looking dangerous, it was painfully obvious that none of Sagna, Arteta, Rosicky and Ramsey were with it. Verminator and Kos were under pressure and only young Gibbs was looking confident. Chewbacca and Ches combined to create the opening for Milan’s first, and the former was also guilty of letting Ibra getting away to lay on Milan’s second. Was he offside? Maybe. Were we hard done by? Not really. They deserved a 2 goal lead at half time.

Then a real blow, Kos going off just before half time. Hopefully it’s a minor problem…losing both him and Per for any length of time (and we know Per’s out for quite a time) may just be the kiss of death for the season. Djourou replaced and at half time Thierry came on for Theo. Now this was a strange one. Theo was by then so anonymous one wondered if he was playing. BUT he wasn’t causing dangerous situations which Tomas most certainly was. His problem was that he was getting into position very well but then undoing the good work with an appalling pass. In this he was slightly ahead of Rambo and Mikel. And we can’t really blame the pitch, it was as bad for both sides. This is something we must expect again on Saturday.

Once again, a slip cost us yet another goal. OK John Terry gave us one but why do we have to do two in 5 days? At least TV didn’t injure himself. The final straw was Johan bringing down Ibra for a penalty and a card. Again, we’ve seen them not given but did it really affect the result? Not really. Robin came close to reducing the deficit but the fairy tale was never going to pan out that way. We were well stuffed and progress is dubious to say the least. But it will be a fun night if and when we do manage it. I seem to recall going there several years back with a 3-0 deficit and winning 5-1. I’ll settle for 5-0 in the return.