Arsenal 0 - Milan 0, Everyone Take a Deep Breath

By: Gianfranco | February 20th, 2008

There is a little trailer video from today’s game that I found a bit late, but enjoy it anyway.

First things first, WE ARE OK! An away goal would have been grand but you have to believe in the Carletto’s way here, this game is erased and now a win at San Siro is all you need to move on. Easier said than done with this season’s record at home, but did any of us expect anything more from the xmas tree?

I learned a few things in today’s match:

*Adebayor is a beast. I have always been proud of our centerback’s size and field prowess; Nesta and Kaladaze are big boys. Adebayor made them look like rag dolls. We all know how much I love Didier Drogba, but this guy is a close second for brutish striker.

*On the flip side Pato, the polar opposite of Adebayor, has got some balls. He made some runs tonight that made me shake my head in disbelief and wonder why on Earth he did not just pass. But then I realized this kid has ice cold veins, and really did not look nervous in the least bit, quite frankly I was impressed. A goal or two would have been nice, but he is really working his way into my good graces.

*Il Capitano is the man, MOTM in my opinion. He was superb in the second half. He did not look 39 and he made some runs and recoveries that reminded of Maldini of ten years ago. Man am I going to miss him…

*Kalac is a solid goalie. Smart, stable, and calm.

*Ro, commenter extraordinaire and AC Milan offside blog enforcer (scared away a few Arsenal fans today), is GASP a GIRL. To think she had us all fooled for so long or maybe just me. It is good to know the female presence is strong here at the acmilan offside, I will take that to heart when I post pictures, sorry fellas.

The rest of the game was bit hit or miss for me. It was very apparent early on that Arsenal was the younger and faster squad. But you could see their lack of experience when they pressed forward, their were times when they could have built up the play but instead dumped a cross into the box hoping for Adebayor to muscle his way through.

Our midfield spent a ton of time defending today, consequently that meant that they did not do too much creating and distribution. In plain English Pirlo, Rino and Ambro were just to busy going to get the ball. Someone should remind Clarence that there was a soccer game today and that he should have shown up, I am his biggest fan when he is on, but he can be subbed just as quickly when he is not involved. Remember Seedorf off means a forward on. I know Ricky is nursing an injury, but if he and Seedorf don’t boss play in the attacking third then the whole xmas tree goes down the crapper. Poor performance from both Clarence and Ricky, just to bad.

I am unsure about Nesta and what happened; it looks to me to be a groin injury. He was able to walk it off, but came off for a very intelligent sub by Carletto. Imagine the nightmare if Bonera was thrown into the mix, cheers Carletto. All and all though a solid performance from the back four, nervous at times but solid nonetheless, except for the offside goal, I was fooled.

In a fortnight this fixture will move its way to San Siro, a win and the champs are through plain and simple. As I said earlier an away goal would have been nice but the Rossoneri now know the task at hand and it will be an extremely exciting and interesting game, after all they very rarely make things easy on the tifosi.