Arsenal have been paired with AC Milan in the last 16 round of the Champions League. The Gunners will play the first leg away in the San Siro on Wednesday 15th February before looking to finish the job at the Emirates on 6th March.
The two clubs played each other at the same stage in the 2007/08 season with Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor memorably sealing a two-nil win in Italy as the Gunners became the first English side to win on Milan’s home turf.
Speaking about the draw club secretary David Miles reflected:
“We are very much looking forward to these two fixutres.
“When you think that being by group winners we start in the San Siro then we play a second leg at a packed stadium I think it is going to be a fantastic night of football for Arsenal Football Club.
“We have been on the rough end of Barcelona for two years running and it was nice knowing it was not going to happen for a third time.”
DRAW IN FULL:
Lyon v APOEL Nicosia
Napoli v Chelsea
AC Milan v Arsenal
Basle v Bayern Munich
Bayer Leverkusen v Barcelona
CSKA Moscow v Real Madrid
Zenit St. Petersburg v Benfica
Marseille v Inter Milan
Yeahhhhhh
Bring it on!!!
Ye and that money chasing sub who use to play for us forget his name
REALLY looking forward to this one! This is why I love champions league football
Not my preferred choice of draw but cest la vie, got to beat the big boys at some point to win it, though I’m sure all the other group teams that could have drawn Milan or for that matter us, were rubbing their greasy mitts with glee. Good luck lads, onwards !
Dear Michelle Platini
Fuck you, you little shit. If we win this I bet we get “randomly drawn” Barcelona next.
Prick.
I guess you have to beat the best teams at some point. Would make it more satisfying in a way if we won the competition with the hardest route possible. Was predictable though.
Thats the style mate, thats the style.
Completely torn here, obviously I’m delighted that we are going to see a huge clash with two of Europe’s biggest clubs. Very exciting. However, we could also have drawn Lyon, Basel, Zenit, CSKA or Leverkusen which all would have been much, much easier.
Still you can’t avoid the big boys for long, this is the Champions League after all! COYG!
I’m fairly happy with the draw. Lyon – an enigma as shown in their last match. Needed a 5 goal swing and got 9 (with the help of 3 from Real) but still scored 7. Basel – showed they are not walkovers Zenit and CSKA – Would have been very long trips, which considering we are trying to claw back the points from Tottenham, would make the PL very difficult after each game. Also Zenit have the art. pitch that could lead to an increase in injuries. Leverkusen – Runners up in the Bundesliga last year, so haven’t become a… Read more »
Basel are a poor team! Dont use the excuse of them eliminating “the pundits’ favourite team” that plays a 4-0-5-1 formation with ‘the best stricker in the world after messi and ronaldo that goes on a spell of 8 games without a goal and gets out scored by his subs’ as an excuse for them being good! They beat otelul galati home and away and thats it.
And before you thumbs down this just remember that my favourite cesc memory is that screamer at the san siro….. And that solo effort against the scum at home.
Basel did exactly what they set out to do which was qualify from the group. Not quite sure how you can write a team off after watching 2 maybe 3 games (if you even watched them at all). Their new manager has got them very well organised, they have some exciting young footballers and also have a good bit of experience in their team. They are a good counter attacking team, something we have struggled against recently, so i feel it would have been a good game. Now sit back down in the corner, take the glue stick out of… Read more »
Exciting but this is one of the team we wanted to avoid if we’re honest.
I’d rather be going to Italy than have to go to Russia. I think we should be more than enough for them as the Italian game still relies heavily on a slow build up so I think our quickness in general and on the break should be too much for them. But at this stage of the competition there really shouldn’t be any easy games and it should be two very good games to watch
Plus flamoney gets to watch (his then poor sub ) Song run the show with Arteta, Rambo, and jack(please).
Hope he has a nice view from the bench. If he’s luck enough to make it
You’re overlooking the fact that the Russian teams just aren’t very good at football and would be much easier to beat.
They didn’t qualify with Byes, you know
*note Man Utd,liverpool,Man City and Sp*rs are not in the UCL
sp*rs and liverpoo arn’t even in the europa league!
🙂
Well if we go in to this fixture with most of our players fit and ready to fight I’m pretty sure we’ll make it. Though “fit” being the key here.
Looking forward to this, not everyday you play against a club with such a rich history.
Yeah this week we have to face a club with no history at all.
what can i say, we got the best draw out of the pool. this will be one hell of a match! up the gunners!
Milan should suit us, we can seriously do some damage with our pace and technique down the flanks. Also, a big team helps to avoid complacency, I wouldn’t want another PSV again.
Top game, two great teams. But i feel milan is beatable. cant wait!
Any team is beatable, just depends who’s playing who I guess.
I’m really looking forward to this as it will be a ‘Clash of Giants’, worthy of Arsenal and ‘Proper Football’ y’know?
luv d draw but a little beat good for barca n madrid while for chelsea n arsenal tough games ahead.
nice to play a big team with lots of history again. make a nice change from the lotto chavs stinking up the league
Not overly worried. Milan have a nice attack, but we should easily win the midfield battle, they have an ageing defence, their goalie is older than water, oh and we have RvP.
Gunners will be in the quarters!
RVP??? we are talking february dude..
Hey, I don’t get why you’re so negative!?
What gives…
Hopefully Theo can destroy them like he did last time.
Should be great matches, could have been an easier draw…
Here is hoping for a fit and firing team come February
especially as he is twice the player he was then, thrown in Gervinho on the other flank and Milan wont know what hit them
A lot of forehead?
Lmao..kudos Steve, kudos.
*takes a bow*
I am nursing a semi at the thought of these ties…
Here’s hoping they dont sign tevez! Milan are definitely a team we can get at, another great night of football, possibly featuring jack Wiltshire!
He’s cup tied. It was a CL game at FC Bayern when he denied to play.
GO LEVERKUSEN!!
2 me i dont c anything dat wrong wit d draw, cos in a league like dis u must b excepting sumthing like dis o, bt all wht i pray 4 nw is injury free nd those dat ar out come back quickly. I remind gunner’s 4 life. Let us keep d faith.
Kindley sir, please read the rules of arseblog news regarding the language, or text speak you use while posting on this fabulous site.
But you can’t spell either, Frog! 😉
What ever happened to the English Language? 🙁
did anyone see who the manchester clubs were drawn against?
thought not
hahahahahahaha
Who bothers to watch lower league football ?
We will 100% win this, rather Milan than CSKA or Napoli anyday.
Bayern next round, Inter in the semis then Barca in the final – piece of piss!
I think our hardest game will be Bayern. Inter aren’t anywhere near the same team Mourinho had after Rafa finished with them.
Barcelona could go either way provided we have a referee with common sense and a hidden hatred for Catalonia. I think honestly think that we could win a final against Barca provided we had out first team fit and healthy
At least cska chelski got a tough draw as well.
Can’t wait for this game.on the side note,was anyone really expecting easier draw considering our luck.when the groups were decided Milan was the only team we were gonna play.very predictable platini.
We will win.COYG
Not worried a bit. They have no midfield. We will dominate the tempo of this game from the get go.
Absolute fucking shit draw. What’s the point of winning your group if this is going to happen? At this stage we wanted a Basle or maybe Lyon. Instead we’ve got the hardest side that we could possibly draw. I smell a conspiracy – fuck you Platini! On the positive side (what, Fatgooner being positive?) Milan are quite beatable. I was just looking at their group-stages results: Against Plzen and Bate Borizov they didn’t do anything spectacular. And with home advantage in the second leg we have a great chance of going through. Let’s just hope that we don’t do anything… Read more »
I believe that the “shit draw” took place after the european cup draw, think it featured giants of European football Stoke City and some clubs from a suburb of Bolton, can’t remember what it’s called
Conspiracy? Yes, for sure. One the year we aren’t drawn against Barca in the last 16, we get Milan. Quite a big “coincidence”.
So Basel who showed they can play football, score and then shut up shop and Lyon who needed 5 goals to qualify and scored 7.
Also you said you were being positive and then ruined it at the end. It was going so well but then you had your cake and shoved it in your own face…..
Well in that respect I can’t fault him. If I had cake I’d shove it my face too.
* in my.
Come on, Arsene, Basil are crap. Your old sparing-partner Fergie must still be wondering how they took four points off United. Drawing them would have been as good as a bye into the next round.
As for Lyon, well due to legal reasons I better not say what I think about their “outstanding” result in their last qualifying game. But we would have beaten them too.
By the way: all this stuff about cakes is making me hungry – I’m off to my local Greggs!
Well playing a 4-5-1 was the mistake he made as it left Rooney isolated up front. Young, Nani and Valencia don’t seem like the sort of players that will really try and push on to aid the striker, so it was always destined to fail. Personally, i would have gone 4-4-2. Although it’s a fairly old formation, you can defend properly with 2 banks of 4 which would lessen the chance of a counter-attack (something Basel, under Heiko Vogel, have started to do well) but also allow the team to reclaim the ball and start moving up the field while… Read more »
Sorry mate but I’ve got to go against you here. I’d much prefer we got Milan than either Russian team or Lyon.
I have no fear of either of the Milan sides this year. In fact I’m glad we drew them. The fact is we’re going to hammer these clowns and when Chelsea inevitably fuck up and go out, what are all the cocksuckers in the English press going to do when they have to get behind the only English side left standing? Oooooo to be a……..
Hopefully the press will just ignore us, thus reducing the pressure placed on our team as the only english club left…
The thing you don’t know is who gets injured between now and then in the usual spate of winter injuries because the EPL not only doesn’t take a break, but works their players particularly hard in Dec and Jan.
It may have been pointed out already, but ITV must be totally gutted that it’s Channel 5 who gets to screen the Manure games!
Ok so we drew AC Milan. Conspiracy? Yes, I’d say so.
On a positive note we can beat ’em as it’s been done before with a less strong team as we have now.
I was gonna write more but the wine’s kicking in a bit and I’ve forgotten….
Brilliant tie. Can’t wait.
AC are unquestionably an impressive outfit, but with our current line up all fit, we can win this over the 2 legs, no doubt about it.
Chelsea have a harder draw. Napoli have been much better than Milan this season and have one of the best front 3 in the world.
I am defiantly getting tickets for this though!!! I’m predicting a 2-2 draw at the San siro and a arsenal win back in london
I don’t think we’re gonna get past milan this term. Most of our players will be bruised and battered by then, RVP will be gone, arsene sacked and Sam allardyce appointed as new manager.
I think that’s enough pessimism from my side for the whole of pessimistic gooners.
Cheer up guys. If u aren’t i.e.
with Phil Brown as his No.2
*shudder*
Critic, some comments are best kept to ones self. especially if they have no value in the scheme of things.
Cheer-up and get behind your team!
I’m sure he does. Has he ever posted on here while Spurs are playing ? 😉
Bacary back and blazing. RVP firing on all 24. Walcott banging ’em in as centre forward. The Ox ploughing right wing. VermGermKos brick-walling everything in front of WozKid. Santos scaring the shit out of their defence (and us). JW weaving magic. Song tracking back’n forth like an engine. And Arshavin.
Awesome. Nothing could possibly go wrong. bring it on.
Especially as you have 12 players on that team and a strange 5-4-1 formation or even 5-3-1-1…
Infact it’s a weird 5-2-2-2…
I have to say your player nicknames are…shall we say…not really common. “Germ”? “WozKid”?
Plus why is Arshavin even mentioned…
I didn’t want to say anything as he probably names all players by either a part of their name or their nationality. I personally have never called Szczesny – WozKid (i’m not even sure where the Woz comes from as his first name is Wojciech) or Mertesacker – Germ (I guess short for German even though he’s generally called the BFG).
Also, i noticed he didn’t include Arteta or Gervinho or even Benayoun/Rosicky if he’s worried about ACN..
Be happy mates, we were drawn against lge champions in our grp, we edged all of them out. Another opportunity to knock out another champion. This is our season of beating lge champions to become champion of champions. I would prefer Milan to Napoli. All the best gunners!
The most exciting fixture in the CL. I know some people are annoyed by it, but why? There is no reason to get annoyed by it, otherwise you are being pessimistic and looking down on our team.
Plus this is the first real international challenge where we are without Cech. We’ve seen the effects of over-reliance on him, and having shrugged that off, we therefore have improved domestically. Time to prove the same internationally.
Cech ? You sure you’re posting on the right teams thread mate ? If you mean Cesc, then yes alright, good point – if not…avast ye !
Blegh, damn Chelski influence. Thanks for correction.
Maybe it’s a transfer completely out of left-field
15th of February. All the boys back in time from afcon. Wilshire should have a game atleast under his belt. Bring it on Italian mugs. We can beat Barcelona, we can beat anyone. #GOONERS
UEFA, putting the FIX into fixture.
Not really. One of the faster more technical teams against a slow plodding team. Arsenals game is much more suited to a game against the italian ‘slow building from the back’ game. I feel sorry for Milan…
I know. I was just being clever like…
That said, Udinese weren’t slow building were they? They gave us a really good game.
I do think we can and will beat Milan though.
Ah but we also played Udinese when our season had turned to shit and we were bereft of confidence. This arsenal squad will stroke the ball round like it was coated in butter, deep fried and fed to fatgooner.
Perchance then they shall be kicking around Fatgooners poo ? That puts the tie in a whole new light for me I have to say.
Great draw. I still consider the CL a lovely little bonus this year, with far less pressure than the Premier League.
We’ll shit em.
Man City vs Arsenal LIVE A tie I feel Arsenal can certainly win. Bring it on.
Hmmm, will probably get hammered as Wenger fucks the tactics up again.
So is it Wenger and his players fault for making Arsenal top their group? Learn something from fatgooner even he is being positive.
i like Milan and hope they dont DIVE like barca or like MADRID (mourinho is a cunt) who just go on more two footed challenges than stoke and not get punished.
Like last time we lost against them? Oh no wait, we won 2-0 as he knew a fast game is better than the slow italian game.
Or against Chelsea when we lost this season…. Oh no, we won that game as well.
You are a fool
Hmm…we lost just about every single CL game…oh wait. Who is in the Champions’ League last 16? Manchester United who are finalists last year?
I believe this is a good tie. Arsenal, in recent seasons have quite a good record against italian teams in the champions league. Plus, its the most exciting of all the ties.
We can take these, barca don’t seem to suit our style for whatever reason but If someone else can knock barca out then I honestly think we could go all the way I think Milan wil suit us over two legs and can’t wait.
Good tie… our ‘far’ better fitness levels should see us beat Milan’s geriatrics. Just gotta keep them running/chasing shadows & then open the turbos in the last 20 mins….
The 2-0 win at the San Siro was one of the great European nights of this fine club.
You can lap it up in anticipation of something similar or moan that you didn´t get an easier draw against some Swiss watchmakers.
I know which I´ll be doing…Next season we might be playing Shamrock Rovers in some pisswilly reserve cup on Thursday nights because we finished fifth on goal difference. Live it and love it, folks.
…or end up playing Shamrock Rovers AND STILL lose!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!etc…. ad infinatum in mad cackling kind of tone.
I fully expect for us to beat Milan, one of the teams I would have wanted. They lost to spurs in this round last year and were doing better in serie A at the time to so this will be a walk in the park for us! COYG
gunns, when you look at our season so far, i think we have had shit luck to last till may. we clawed our way back to silence the spuds and mancs – they would trade a limp for the CL any day. we are scaring our opponents again. nobody gave us a rat’s fart of a chance to better maseille and dortmund. but where are we now? we have already won in italy this year – to opposition better than milan. we dont need luck to bludgeon king bunga’s boys; we have the arsenal to do it.
Love it. Proper champions league tie against a proper club.
Not ‘Thursday night, channel 5!’
125 years old chaps, it could happen…
Wheres Man Utd and Man City…… Oh Yer!!! Loosers!!
Think FIX is the word here. Really believe Platini prepared his hat since after the group draw. The only spanner was we were first in our group instead of second. Byebye Barca…welcome Milan.
What a massive draw! Obviously a team to get out of the way early. UCL – no easy games.
With AC Milan’s rich history, both legs should be cracking games — especially the second leg at The Emirates.
COYG!
Looking at the comments, it looks like everyone is taking Milan too lightly. Gives me an uneasy feeling.
If you look in the Arses, there was a hellavu lot of hand-wringing going on there.
For all the talks about Podoski’s potential transfer, it is time to give it a rest.
The guy is Chamak in disguise!
Today, in one of his clubs (Koln) high profile game against Bayern, where Mr. Venger was expected to attend to confirm his interest, he was the shi**. His rating by local media 4.0
I don’t think Venger will bring that clown for free. What a waist of time to watch that game. But it also showed why AV isnt bringing Ribery either, two yellow cards in 20 sec, Wow
I saw some of the Koln game. Podolski looked pretty frustrated and disinterested to me. He wasn’t getting much help at all and you could really see the difference in quality between Koln and Bayern. I’d like to believe that playing for higher stakes (like he does in Germany national team) in a bigger club (Arsenal) would change his mentality.
If anyone can revitalize his club career its Wenger.
Awesome drawing information, really inspiring!