San Siro no longer holds the same fear for English sides, but Arsène Wenger's Arsenal team lack the confidence of old
By now, Stadio Giuseppe Meazza no longer feels quite like the bearpit of old. Arsenal have won their past two visits to this famous old stadium.
Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool have all silenced the curva sud and curva nord in the past four years and the Milan coach, Massimiliano Allegri, was facing questions here on Tuesday night about whether they were in danger of developing an inferiority complex against English opponents.
That is not to say San Siro, under the lights, with the Champions League anthem blaring, is no longer one of the great football challenges for a side from the Premier League, but this is an unusual time for Milan. They are top of Serie A, yet generating only modest acclaim for their performances and widely seen as falling short when it comes to what it takes to win Europe's premier club competition.
Carlo Ancelotti, twice a winner during his eight-year tenure at Milan, has already said he sees it as beyond them. Arrigo Sacchi, another former manager, has been scathing in his criticisms. Sacchi is 65 and, after one defeat at Lazio, talked of having "doubts that some of the players were not my age".
All of which would be fairly encouraging for Arsenal had they not given the impression this season that it would be an ever greater leap of faith to imagine them standing on the podium in Munich on 19 May. Arsène Wenger's side are currently 17 points off Manchester City at the top of the Premier League.
They have conceded more away goals than any other team bar 20th-placed Wigan Athletic and fourth-from-bottom Blackburn Rovers, and it is only a few weeks since the Arsenal crowd subjected Wenger to the most vitriolic abuse of his 15 years at the club. Ancelotti was asked about Arsenal's chances and was polite but dismissive. "I'm not sure they're thinking they can win the Champions League."
Wenger, naturally, disagreed. "If I thought we had no chance I would stay at home. I don't like to waste my time." However, there was an admission that his current team are not as accomplished as the one that played Milan in 2008, when the reigning European champions could not score a goal over two legs against their English opposition.
"We were top of the league and we had a young team that went into that match full of confidence," Wenger reminisced. "Now we are a team building confidence. Football is interesting because you can win everywhere. We have already shown we can win everywhere. I have full confidence in my team to do it."
If so, they may need to rediscover the kind of streetwise edge that has been missing far too often since that last encounter with Milan, arguably Arsenal's last great knockout victory in Europe. The best Champions League teams tend to play with control and concentration and Arsenal displayed all those qualities inside San Siro that evening, winning courtesy of late goals from Cesc Fábregas and Emmanuel Adebayor. Four years on, it is a reflection of the upheaval they have since encountered that only one player from the starting XI, Bacary Sagna, will be in Wenger's lineup this time.
Milan are going through their own period of change and, like Arsenal, it has not always been to the liking of their crowd. A perception has grown that they have sacrificed some of the old panache to play in a more functional manner — epitomised, perhaps, by the presence of the Dutch enforcer Mark van Bommel in midfield. More perspiration, less inspiration. Or as Allegri put it: "You can't always dine on lobster and caviar. Every now and again you have to be satisfied with a ham sandwich."
After being unbeaten at San Siro for 13 months they have lost twice on their own ground in the last few weeks. They are also beset by injury problems, with 13 players missing their victory at Udinese last weekend. It was their first win in four matches and Juventus have closed the gap at the top of Serie A to two points, with a couple of games in hand.
For a club at the top of the league, the mood in Milan seems unexpectedly pessimistic, especially when also taking into account that Arsenal have so many injury concerns of their own that Wenger is considering fielding a deliberately weakened side in the FA Cup fifth-round tie at Sunderland on Saturday.
By then, Thierry Henry will have returned to the New York Red Bulls, the Milan trip ending a loan arrangement that has so far brought him three goals in six appearances. Wenger talked about having tried to extend the loan but being unable to convince the Major League Soccer side to be without their captain any longer when their own season starts in a couple of weeks. Henry has fond memories of San Siro after scoring twice here when Arsenal trounced Internazionale 5-1 in 2003, but it was the 2-0 against Milan five years later that Wenger recalled.
"Are we stronger or not? I will give you the answer after the game." Whatever happens, he will need some remarkable powers of persuasion to convince most observers that the current team, sans Fábregas, William Gallas, Alexander Hleb, Mathieu Flamini, Adebayor and the other heroes of 2008, are a superior bunch.
But having come this far, he could be forgiven for not wanting to believe Ancelotti.
Source: Daniel Taylor, The Guardian on 14 Feb 12
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