Danny Welbeck leads Arsenal into Europa League quarter-finals with brace against lacklustre AC Milan
Arsenal 3 (5) AC Milan 1 (1): Welbeck struck twice and Granit Xhaka scored from distance as Arsenal hammered a depressingly weak AC Milan 5-1 on aggregate
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Your support makes all the difference.Arsenal are through to the Europa League quarter-finals and any humiliating comeback avoided, although not without some levels of embarrassment on the night.
Arsene Wenger’s side beat a depressingly weak AC Milan 3-1 on the night and 5-1 on aggregate courtesy of a dive from Danny Welbeck to produce a penalty, and then a howler from Gianluigi Donnarumma for a Granit Xhaka long shot. Whatever about the wrongs of either incident, though, they did come at the right times for Arsenal: just when it looked like Milan might make a game of it.
Perhaps the biggest consequence of this game came in the 11th minute, and had nothing to do with how it panned out. That was when Koscielny had to go off, holding his left hip. The hope is it’s nothing too serious, but it’s probably just as well that Arsenal don’t have a game this weekend.
The feeling at that point was that it had the potential to be one of those nights for Wenger, but then Milan don’t currently look like one of those teams. They don’t really look like a Milan team, such is the poverty of their first XI.
Even before Koscielny’s injury, they had wasted what looked the best chance of the game, as Andre Silva put the ball wide from close range.
Hakan Calhanoglu did eventually pull one goal back for Milan through a bouncing bomb of a long-range strike, but they couldn’t even keep the benefit of that for long.
For the Serie A side’s part, that wasn’t entirely down to their failings. There were also the failings of the officials, specifically the one behind the goalline with the best view of Welbeck as he went down under no challenge or physical force.
A penalty was given, and Milan’s momentum was taken away. Welbeck got up to send the ball into the corner.
It wasn’t exactly becoming of the striker, but it did expose and emphasise something else about this Milan: their lack of nous at this level. You would wonder what some of their greats of the 1980s and 1990s thought watching this.
There was also the way they were giving the ball away so much, one of those moments eventually seeing Jack Wilshere hit a thunderbolt at goal, only for Gianluigi Donnarumma - one of their very few coveted players - to punch it away.
Arsenal’s own weaknesses meant the Italians were still getting chances, like when Patrick Crutone sent the ball wide from just yards out, after a fine chipped ball from Suso. With Koscielny off, Milan had identified a very specific weakness at the centre of David Ospina’s defence. They kept trying the same type of ball into that area. They also kept missing, mind, like when substitute Nikola Kalinic headed straight at the goalkeeper.
You could say the frustration was getting to Gennaro Gattuso, except he seems permanently frenetic and irritable. The referee rebuking him for an eventual incident like aggressively throwing the ball back at Nacho Monreal seemed inevitable, although he did have the grace to apologise.
It was soon Donnarumma feeling the need to apologise, though, as he attempted to parry a Granit Xhaka long shot only for the ball to spin into the net. It was a reminder that, for all he is coveted, there is a callowness there.
There is more than callowness to this Milan, as Welbeck eventually made it 3-1.
The Italian side’s failings don’t matter to Arsenal now. All that matters is Koscielny’s fitness and that his team are in the quarter-finals of the Europa League, one step closer to what might be Wenger’s first European trophy.
Whatever about embarrassments, this season could yet end with a proper triumph.
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