David Hytner's match report
Updated
And that would be your lot. Arsenal are through to the quarter-finals of the Europa League, and one step closer to that redemptive trophy. By the way, Borussia Dortmund are out - they drew 0-0 tonight with Red Bull Salzburg, having been 2-1 down from the first leg. As long as Arsenal don’t draw Atletico Madrid tomorrow, they’ll be optimistic of going through.
Thanks for reading - goodnight!
Well, the scoreline made it look like a stroll, but there really were some long nervy spells for Arsenal, even if Milan simply weren’t very good over the two games. 5-1 on aggregate sounds like one team was really good and one was really bad, but ultimately one team was OK and the other particularly flat.
Updated
Full-time: Arsenal 3-1 Milan - Arsenal win 5-1 on aggregate
Peeeeeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins: Two minutes of injury-time. Elneny tries a shot from range, but it’s blocked.
89 mins: Another Arsenal goal here would be an emphatic gloss on this performance, but Wilshere almost provides it, shooting low from outside the area and it skips just past the post.
86 mins: Wilshere skips down the left, gets to the byline and clips a cross into the middle for Ramsey, who’s on his own thanks to a Milan defence ravaged by the need to attack. His header is saved but loops up for Welbeck, leaving him the very easiest task to nod in his second.
GOAL! Arsenal 3-1 Milan (Welbeck 86) - Arsenal lead 5-1 on aggregate
England’s finest!
Updated
85mins: Another thing that hasn’t stopped: Gattuso’s yelling.
82 mins: A Milan corner breaks out to Locatelli, he shoots but it’s weak and is easily cleared. Should add that the Milan fans have been singing loudly, and non-stop since Xhaka’s goal. Incidentally, we know there’s a problem with the score up there - alas, not something we can fix at the moment. Apologies.
80 mins: Big game player.
Granit Xhaka's last four Arsenal goals have come against AC Milan, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.
— Richard Jolly (@RichJolly) March 15, 2018
79 mins: Subs for both teams: for Milan, Kessie is replaced by Locatelli, and the home side replace Ozil with Sead Kolasinac.
77 mins: From a corner, Suso volleys a shot at goal, it deflects off Bellerin and goes wide, but for reasons best known to himself the referee awards a goal-kick.
76 mins: Vibes, vibes, vibes. “Shall we continue the theme?” writes Mister Justin. “How about some Bonobo?”
75 mins: Bellerin goes down and wants a bit of treatment after an accidentally-on-purpose whack in the ribs from Bonaventura, but ultimately he’s OK.
73 mins: “Continuing the early ‘00s chillout vibe,” contributes Luke Forrester, “here’s this lovely Casino Versus Japan song, ‘It’s Very Sunny’; offered, pre-emptively, as an ironic comment on this weekend’s weather.”
71 mins: Xhaka tries a shot from about 25 yards out, there’s not a huge amount of pace on it and Donnarumma dives to his left and saves fairly easily. But the ball must have hit the heels of his palms, it skews across his body and somehow spins into the opposite corner. Tie over now....you would think.
GOAL! Arsenal 2-1 Milan (Xhaka 71) - Arsenal lead 4-1 on aggregate
Donnarumma calamity!
Updated
69 mins: Arsenal sub, and you can see where Wenger is going with this: Mkhitaryan goes off, and Mo Elneny is on. Milan make a change too: Calhanoglu goes off, and Bonaventura is on.
68 mins: And Kalinic nearly scores with his first touch! Bonucci finds himself in the right wing position, booming over a quite magnificent cross that slices and dices the Arsenal defence, Kalinic gets up to the header but can’t get enough power on it, and Ospina saves with relative ease.
67 mins: Change for Milan - off comes Cutrone, and on comes Blackburn hall of famer Nikola Kalinic.
65 mins: Milan corner from the right, and they try a sort of modified Sheringham-Anderton, as Calhanoglu pulls it back to the edge of the area, Montolivio tries the first-time shot but tops it, and it loops well over.
63 mins: Gattuso collects the ball after it goes out for a throw, and fizzes a chest pass to Monreal. The ref gives him a look, and the TK Maxx-clad ball of fury briefly calms down and shakes Monreal’s hand.
62 mins: Welcome to the early-2000s chill-out vibe corner of the MBM. In response to the Zero 7 song posted earlier, Wilson Beuys writes: “Does this mean that when it all kicks off in the second half and you try to Zen people down a bit, you might also link to Supreme Beings of Leisure’s Never the Same? Thanks to a rather lovely friend from my youth, the two tracks are inextricably linked.”
60 mins: Suso runs at Mustafi and goes down. The whistle goes...but it’s to book the Milan play for a dive. A correct decision, and at least we now know the ref recognises what a dive is...
59 mins: Close! Cutrone goes for a flying side scissor kick thing of a shot, but it catches his shins and skews just wide.
58 mins: Eeek. Silva goes down in the box under a challenge from Chambers...it would have been a soft penalty, but...well...y’know.
56 mins: Oh, big chance. Milan claim Mustafi fouls Calhanoglu, but no dice and Arsenal attack down the right. Ozil plays a delightful pass to Ramsey, setting up a great shooting chance just inside the area, but he skies it, caught by Borini on the follow through. Odd that those sort of challenges aren’t given as penalties, but nobody claimed it.
54 mins: Su, so close. Well, it looked like it initially. Nice move from Milan involving Calhanoglu and Rodriguez, it breaks to Suso on the edge of the box and he drags a low shot just past the post. Or actually quite a bit past the post - it looked quite close initially.
53 mins: Mkhitaryan attacks through the middle, but his pass to Ozil is a little behind him, the German has to check but his cross towards Welbeck at the back stick is even worse.
50 mins: Suso curves a cross into the area from the right, looking for the run of Calhanoglu, but it’s just too high and goes through to Ospina. Arsenal then sweep upfield, Ozil plays a deliciously-timed pass to Mkhitaryan on the left side of the box but he misshits his shot, aiming towards the far post but actually shooting towards the near. Lively start to the second-half.
49 mins: Smart movement and passing in the Milan area sets Bellerin up for a cut-back, which he directs to Ramsey, but his deflected shot is easily held by Donnarumma.
48 mins: Nice play from Milan near the edge of the Arsenal box, but Kessie shoots with his left foot and it’s gnat’s fart weak, easily saved by Ospina.
46 mins: Arsenal try an attack straight away, but Monreal’s pass to Ramsey down the left is a bit too strong and goes out for a goal kick.
Players out for the second-half. Same 22 as finished the first, as far as I can tell. It’s on!
“I respectfully disagree on it being a Welbeck dive,” writes AB Parker. “Welbeck can barely control his own feet. If he tries to shoot, he trips over. If he tries to control the ball, he passes it 10 feet wide. If he’d tried to dive, he’d probably have scored a goal by accident.”
Fair play to the official for trying to stare him out, there...
Tell him how you really feel, Gennaro...
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) March 15, 2018
🤬 pic.twitter.com/MP5o1MjfYN
Another quick word about the penalty: Welbeck might claim that there was a hint of contact so he was entitled to go down, but that is piffle. A couple of people have emailed in to wonder why I didn’t call it cheating, and they’re right - Welbeck dived, or if you prefer the umbrella term, he cheated.
At the half-time whistle Gattuso sensibly ushers his players away from the referee and linesman, as they try to surround him in protest about that penalty. He then spins on his heels and gives both barrels of spittle-flecked invective to the extra, behind the goal official who it seems actually gave it. Classic Reno.
Half-time: Arsenal 1-1 Milan (Arsneal lead 3-1 on aggregate)
Peeeeeeeeep.
45 mins + 1: Couple of chances for Arsenal: firstly Mkhitaryan robs Romagnoli and runs at goal from the right, but his cut-back is cleared. Then the ball breaks to Wilshere around 25 yards out, he shoots with power, Donnarumma dives to his left to save and Ramsey can’t quite get to the rebound.
45 mins: Monreal sends over a cross from the left, Welbeck does really well to knock it back into the middle but Mkhitaryan can’t get the requisite power or direction on the header.
44 mins: Oooof. Getting hairy in the Arsenal box. Suso bends over a brilliant cross from the right, Cutrone and a couple of others queue up to put it home but the offside flag goes up. Still a fair amount of panic in the Gunner defence, though.
41 mins: By-the-by: that Arsenal goal means no penalties and no extra-time tonight.
4o mins: All kicking off now. The ball strikes Chambers on the arm in the Arsenal area, but it was accidental and he was looking the other way. The Milan players go absolutely postal, and one of them - Suso I think - gets booked for the ferocity of his objections.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-1 Milan (Welbeck 39) - Arsenal lead 3-1 on aggregate
Welbeck sends Donnarumma the wrong way, after a long wait. Arsenal nerves calm a little...
Updated
PENALTY TO ARSENAL!
That is marshmallow soft. Rodriguez sort of half sticks an arm out near Welbeck, he seems to pause and look at the official behind the goal before going down. But go down he does, and after a long pause the referee points at the spot!
Updated
35 mins: Now then. Calhanoglu has the ball way out towards the left, and he’s not properly closed down by either Chambers or Bellerin, possibly because they think he’s so far from goal that doing so would be a waste of energy. But he uses this space to take a punt at goal, it curls and dips, Ospina seems to move late and it goes in.
GOAL! Arsenal 0-1 Milan (Calhanoglu 35) - Arsenal lead 2-1 on aggregate
Hooooooooooo boy.
Updated
34 mins: For a very, very brief moment, Gattuso’s buttocks touched the bench, but he was rapidly up again and yelling at Suso for overhitting another cross.
32 mins: Zach Neeley thinks you should all just light some candles, stick Zero 7 on the hi-fi and chill out, man. “If Welbeck is our best striker for the competition, and probably won’t even make it through the entirety, we aren’t going to win. Better to just enjoy the matches as they come and stop thinking about the future.”
30 mins: Wilshere’s corner from the left eludes everyone in the area and breaks out to Ramsey on the edge of the box. He takes a touch instead of trying a first-time shot from a tricky position, but only succeeds in running the ball out on the right of the area.
29 mins: Christian has been on from Helsinki: “As the memento mori goes: Three princes rides in to a forest. They meet three skeleton riding on skeleton horses. The skeletons say: ”What you are, we were. What we are, you will be”.
“I am very positive about the outcome of this meeting and think that we (Arsenal) will get through to the next stage, but there is something scary about this encounter with a former European giant. I can see a post-Allegri-scenario for Arsenal, once the Wenger Out-brigade have had their way.”
26 mins: The most consistent soundtrack to this game is the hoarse barking in Italian coming from the Milan technical area. Maybe he’s stressed about cashflow.
Gennaro Gattuso looks like a man who runs a really stressful small business and has two teenage children who keep getting suspended from school
— Sachin Nakrani (@SachinNakrani) March 15, 2018
25 mins: Calhanoglu tries a cross from the left of the area and Cutrone stoops to almost thigh-height for a header, which is blocked and he vainly claims handball. Arsenal counter at some pace, Welbeck shoots from the left side of the box but Donnarumma makes the save at the near stick.
24 mins: Suso attacks down the right and tries a cross, but it’s blocked at the near post. The corner is cleared, and when Calhanoglu tries pumping it back into the area, he pumps it too far.
22 mins: “With Koscielny, you don’t know the counterfactual,” fnars Matthew Stephens. “If he’d stayed on against Bayern, Arsenal might have lost 8-1.”
21 mins: Unsurprisingly Arsenal are directing most of their attacks down the left, trying to get at Borini. Ozil cushions a volleyed pass to Mkhitaryan on that side of the box, and he tries a sort of lofted half-volley cross to the back post, but it’s too strong and goes wide.
19 mins: Cutrone bends his run and a flicked ball over the top finds him, but that run was not bent enough and he’s flagged offside.
“Can we talk more about Gattuso’s blazer /tracksuit top?” asks Hugh Molloy. “Lapels, branded shoulder patch, and cuff zips has TK Maxx written all over it. Not what you’d expect from an Italian manager... Disappointed.” Didn’t notice the cuff zips. That’s a shame.
18 mins: Mkhitaryan feeds Monreal on the left, he clips over a cross from the byline but Welbeck is beaten to the header by Montolivio and it’s cleared.
Updated
16 mins: Milan counter, and a terrific Montolivio pass finds Andre Silva. The attack slows a little and they have to start again, knocking the ball around midfield, looking for a gap. It’s shifted out to Rodriguez on the left, but his big cross from deep is headed clear, and what was once a promising attack fizzles.
13 mins: Without wishing to worry you unduly, Gooners, but Koscielny also had to go off injured at the equivalent stage of the Champions League last season. When he departed the score was 1-1 - by full-time Bayern had won 5-1.
11 mins: Koscielny limps off. Wenger tries to give him a consoling pat on the back but misjudges it, pats air and nearly stumbles over, which would have been a tragic metaphor for the state of things.
10 mins: That injury Koscielny seemed to suffer a few minutes ago looks like it will curtail his evening - he’s really struggling, and Calum Chambers is stripped off and ready to come on. While the physio is on to attend to Koscielny, Monreal asks for a bit of help with something caught in his eye. Not now, mate.
7 mins: Su-su-suso skins Monreal on the Milan right, belts towards goal but entirely shanks the cross and it sails harmlessly behind.
Updated
5 mins: “Gwaaaaarrrrn Micky!” shout some Arsenal fans as Mkhitaryan takes a corner from the right, which is outswung into the box. Koscielny wins the header, but sends it wide, and perhaps a little concerningly holds his side as he lands.
4 mins: Crowd watch: it is by no means full, but it looks like there are more in than against Watford on Sunday.
3 mins: Gattuso is clad in the same sensible fleece (possibly bought from Blacks) he was wearing in the first leg, but has paired it with a club blazer he looks entirely uncomfortable with.
2 mins: Oooof - Milan on the attack straight away, and Andre Silva flashes a shot from the right of the box, in absolutely acres, which ripples the net - the outside of the net, although it had a few people fooled.
1 min: We’re away. Arsenal shooting from left to right in red and white shirts, white knickerbockers and white stockings. Milan wearing all black with red trim.
“I’ve always been proud to support Arsenal due to Wenger’s decency and loyalty,” writes Drew in Maine, “but I fear that it’s also one of his (and the club’s) biggest weaknesses. If they get through tonight, let’s hope they don’t face the ruthlessness of Simeone’s Atletico.”
Teams...tunnel...football!
Updated
Bagsy not sitting next to these boys.
Not everyone is against you, Arsene...
Banner showing support for Arsene Wenger at the ground tonight. pic.twitter.com/7EtusmtvZq
— ArsenalFanTV (@ArsenalFanTV) March 15, 2018
“Wenger’s European record brings to mind that of 1960’s French Tour de France cyclist Raymond Poulidor,” writes Michael Cosgrove, presumably vocalising what we were all thinking, “who, despite an illustrious career, never managed to win it although he reached the top three on eight occasions, hence his moniker of ‘The Nearly Man’. So let’s hope Wenger, a thoroughly decent man and loyal manager, ends his career with this cup in his cupboard and the moniker ‘The Man Who Finally Did It’. It’s the least he deserves.”
Gennaro Gattuso has been doing his best Bruce Willis impression:
We were born ready. We know it’s difficult, I’d be a hypocrite to say otherwise. In football and sport in general, the best thing is beating the odds. We didn’t come here for a day trip and we didn’t underestimate Arsenal at San Siro, they simply played better than we did. Tomorrow we hope it’ll be different.
“I am not someone who gives the team big speeches before a game. I already stress them out shouting at them for 90 minutes during a match, I can’t start talking even when they ought to relax.
“You cannot buy experience at the supermarket. When you face a side like Arsenal, those issues can emerge, but the important thing is to realise where we went wrong. Tomorrow we have nothing to lose.
That looks like a pretty attacking Milan side, and so it should be - they need at least two goals, preferably more. Cutrone and Andre Silva up top, with Suso and Calhanoglu knocking around too. That isn’t a typo by the way: it really does look like Fabio Borini is playing at right-back, having auditioned there against Genoa at the weekend.
No real surprises for Arsenal: Alex Iwobi drops out from the team that beat Watford at the weekend, and of course there’s no Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. Another chance for Welbz...
Team news
Arsenal
Ospina; Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal; Ramsey, Xhaka, Wilshere; Ozil, Mkhitaryan, Welbeck. Subs: Cech, Iwobi, Chambers, Maitland-Niles, Kolasinac, Elneny, Nketiah.
Milan
Donnarumma; Borini, Bonucci, Romagnoli, Rodriguez; Kessie, Calhanoglu, Montolivo, Suso; Cutrone, Andre Silva. Subs: Storari, Bonaventura, Kalinic, Zapata, Biglia, Musacchio, Locatelli.
Referee: Jonas Eriksson (Sweden)
Preamble
The majority of the time, if you took a 2-0 lead into the second leg of a European tie, having broadly dominated the first, against a side sixth in their domestic league, you’d be pretty confident. You might even consider giving one or two players a rest: a risky move, but probably one you’d get away with.
But then again this is Arsenal. The team that on occasion can look as swaggering as a lion, but often as meek as a kitten who’s been off the Dreamies. If you want a team you can trust, look elsewhere. Supporting them must be a pain. You have my sympathies. At least most of the rest of us don’t have hope. You lot have hope.
Still, they really should go through against this Milan team who are in fine form under Gennaro Gattuso (last Thursday was the first time they’d lost since just before Christmas), but who were troublingly poor in the first leg. And should they go through it will provide a scrap of positivity in what has been a grim death march of a season, which has felt like a time-killing exercise before Arsene Wenger finally accepts the inevitable.
Would winning the Europa League provide Wenger with a high note on which to go out or encouragement that he’s still on the right track and should definitely carry on?
But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Tonight first. Stay tuned.
Kick-off: 8.05pm GMT
Updated
