Wrong Trophy?

By Boris Mellor
March 4 2008

Wenger is urging pace and patience, that is a tricky concept, that means holding two ideas in your head at once, as a spectator, and as a reader of Eamon Dunphy, I believe, with no intention of insulting any one, that is a difficult feat for any footballer to achieve.

 Half will play with patience and no pace, and the other half with pace and no patience. Instructing a team is a bit like Chinese whispers, the manager gives the talk but never know what message the players actually get.

At home the team achieved patience, but was left effective on the pace side. Now if we had a van Persie we might have potted one of our chances. For the first time this season, I missed Henry, although his last appearance for Arsenal in this competition was a disaster due to injury.

Meanwhile some pro Milan pundits seem to be egging Arsenal on, saying they were too scared to play a tempo game at home. I assume they are trying to provoke the Gunners to go wild and leave the back open.

If Arsenal play 90 minutes at tempo and it were 0-0 at full time, the old men of Milan would hope to pounce on the tired away team in extra time, unless they suffered even more. However, they do not run around that much - so no reason to tire.

Can Arsenal do it? If they can get a quick goal then the Italians may go flaky, if we have to wait until late without scoring, and bring RvP on from the bench it may be too late. Let's hope that van Persie's return is in the nick of time.

Will Arsenal be the first English team to beard AC Milan in their own den? Well if any team can do it, it is the Gunners. As I do not know what the line-ups will be at this stage I am not going to predict, but score one goal and it is up for grabs. After all the Gunners do not have to win, a 1-1 draw would do it.

 Here is the probable squad:

 Lehmann, Diaby, Sagna, Fabregas, Senderos, Gallas, Van Persie, Hleb, Denilson, Flamini, Gilberto, Clichy, Almunia, Adebayor, Bendtner, Eboue, Hoyte, Walcott.

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