Arsenal take on AC Milan at the San Siro tonight in the last 16 of the Champions League. This will be the second part of a pivotal week for Arsene Wenger‘s side as they play three games in three different competitions.
Wenger feels his side will go into the match in full confidence after last weekend’s victory over Sunderland. For once the side showed the so called ‘mental strength’ Wenger stresses so much that his side possesses. Unsurprisingly though, the Frenchman stated that his team will not take the same approach that Tottenham took last season to knock out the Italians, instead he wants to go to Milan to attack his opponents and dictate play:
‘Milan had a lot of the ball and Tottenham caught them on the break at the end of the game.
‘You never decide when you break, you break when you can. It was a game which was vastly dominated, especially in the second half, by Milan.
‘We will not decide at the start of the game that we will sit in our half if we have to, like Tottenham did. We will do it and then try to catch them on the break.
‘But at the start we will try to get out of our own half and try to get up there and play. Spurs won the game when they were dominated, but that is football today.’
Moving on to team news, Arsene has given his backing to Kieran Gibbs to start in the left-back position, but given he has not played in over two months, Wenger is understandably a little cautious with starting him in such a significant match:
‘If I start him, which is not decided yet, I do not want to put too much pressure on him because we want a good team performance. Gibbs is a good player.
‘I will find the most natural [solution], which means I will put Vermaelen back in the middle. Gibbs looks to be ready so I might look to start him but I have not decided completely yet.’
I do wonder if he will play Johan Djourou in the middle for this game and play Gibbs in the FA cup tie instead.
I have seen many people criticize Djourou for his performances this season and I feel it is totally unfair. This is the same Djourou who was outstanding during last season – the match v Chelsea where he had Drogba in his pocket, the Barcelona game where he and Laurent Koscielny were outstanding and the 4-4 v Newcastle where people blamed our capitulation to him being substituted in the second half. So I for one won’t be at all concerned to see Djourou start and Vermaelen continue at left-back tonight.
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