Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Aaron Ramsey hand revitalised Arsenal control of Europa League tie against AC Milan
AC Milan 0 Arsenal 2: The Gunners impressed in the San Siro and took a major step towards the quarter-finals with a commanding victory
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Your support makes all the difference.It might not be a win to completely transform their season but, for Arsenal, a comfortable win at the San Siro and half a foot in the Europa League quarter-finals represents a job well done and the first step towards repairing their confidence, which has been battered and bruised on the home front but which they found again in Europe, beating Milan 2-0.
On paper this was a meeting of two of European football’s great clubs at a cathedral of the sport. In reality, at the beginning at least, it was two scratchy teams way off their best. Years off their best. Futures uncertain.
Gazzetta dello Sport had labelled it “an encounter of lost nobility, and the desire to recover it”. But there was not much noble about the early exchanges, which were error-strewn, producing chance after chance but with nothing sticking.
Giacomo Bonaventura could and probably should have given the hosts the lead twice in the first five minutes before Mesut Ozil passed when he should have shot – as is his way – and Arsenal squandered another excellent position of their own.
Flitting back and forth, this was a game that felt clumsily balanced rather than delicately poised until Ozil eventually provided the stroke of genius needed to change the dynamic, clipping a sumptuous, dipping throughball to Mkhitaryan, whose shot deflected past Gianluigi Donnarumma and sent the pocket of north London in the Curva Nord into raptures.
Mkhitaryan sought out Ozil in the celebrations, keen to pay tribute to the German for his part in the goal and it was that playmaking pair that produced most of the quality and, eventually, rhythm for Arsenal. After that opening strike they managed to calm the game down and assert a little dominance over Milan, who were kings of the half-chance without ever looking like a team that would trouble a pretty trouble-prone David Ospina.
It was almost a disappointment.
AC Milan is a name that invokes suffocatingly stout defending, silky playmakers and poaching, gesticulating strikers. Young Patrick Cutrone, a feisty 20-year-old, tried his very best to fulfil the latter but in everything else Milan were sorely lacking.
And yet this iteration of Milan has been so far from their historic heights for long enough now that the standards are different. The stage may look the same but the band has aged and the drummer and lead guitarist have either quit or been found dead in a toilet backstage, nobody really knows. Recent form under returning firebrand Gennaro Gattuso had been impressive – 13 unbeaten and six games without conceding a goal – but Milan, the Milan remain in seventh place, battling gamely for a Europa League spot and 25 points off leaders Napoli.
The comparisons with Arsenal are all too easy. Notionally these are both clubs who could bounce back any season; they have significant global support, huge revenues and state-of-the-art facilities. But both also have unpopular overseas owners and squads bloated by a glut of OK-to-good players that are paid like the elite.
Mesut Ozil, an elite player who is now paid like it, ultimately was the standout performer on a night where it was Arsenal’s creators that were the difference. Had someone more in-form than the hapless Danny Welbeck – which, on this evidence, could have been virtually anyone contracted to Arsenal Football Club – been blessed with the supply line that Ozil and Mkhitaryan were pumping through then this could have been an even bigger victory.
In Aaron Ramsey, though, Arsenal found a willing beneficiary, gorging himself on Ozil’s selflessness to double Arsenal’s lead just before the break.
The Welshman had spent much of the evening playing a deep midfield role with impressive discipline, but with the clock ticking down on the first half he spotted a hole in the inside-right channel and ran straight through it. Ozil once again provided the pass and Ramsey rounded Donnarumma, tapped home and wheeled away as the San Siro fell deathly silent.
It allowed Arsenal to sit deep in the second half and force Milan to try and create. When they couldn’t create, they changed shape but it was still ineffective. Gattuso used each of his three substitutions to introduce a new striker but, of that number, one was Blackburn flop Nikola Kalinic and another was former Sunderland man Fabio Borini. He sent for the cavalry and all he got was a procession of donkeys.
Lacking in inspiration and quality, shoulders hunched and hearts empty, Milan’s efforts petered out.
For the nobles of Arsenal, a restorative victory.
AC Milan: Donnarumma 6; Calabria 6 (Borini, 79), Bonucci 6, Romagnoli 5, Rodriguez 6; Kessie 5, Biglia 5, Bonaventura 5; Suso 6, Cutrone 6 (Andre Silva, 68), Çalhanoglu 6 (Kalinic, 62).
Arsenal: Ospina 6; Chambers 6 (Elneny, 85), Koscielny 7, Mustafi 5, Kolasinac 6 (Maitland-Niles, 62); Xhaka 6, Ramsey 7; Wilshere 7, Mkhitaryan 7, Ozil 8 (Holding, 80); Welbeck 5.
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