AC Milan’s sporting director Massimiliano Mirabelli says he feels sorry for Arsenal after they were paired with the Italian giants in the Europa League last sixteen.
Predicting the Rossoneri will progress at the expense of Arsene Wenger’s side, Mirabelli underlined his confidence by suggesting the Gunners were the perfect opponents. Anybody who watched us last night might be inclined to agree.
“I’m sorry for Arsenal, who I’m sure would have liked to have continued in Europe,” said Mirabelli after the draw.
“It would have been a nice final, but I’m happy. It’s best to face a big club like Arsenal now. We needed opponents like these.”
Arsenal and Milan have faced each other six times in European competition to date. Milan beat George Graham’s Cup Winners’ Cup winners 2-0 on aggregate in the 1995 Super Cup, Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor scored in the San Siro to secure a memorable Champions League win in 2008 and the Italians progressed at the Gunners expense in the same competition four years later when they clung on to a 4-0 first-leg win to progress 4-3.
Christian Abbiati, Milan’s Club Manager, played in goal on the night Arsenal threatened one of Europe’s greatest comebacks. He doesn’t think N5’s current crop is of the same standard.
“It was a disaster at London, where we lost 3-0, but in the end, we made it through,” Abbiati said. “I hope we don’t see the same mistakes this time. Milan are in good form at the moment with some good results and I hope we can keep it up.
“This is definitely not the same Arsenal as back then and we meet them in what is a positive moment for us, even if we’ve got lots of games coming up with the league and the Coppa Italia. Playing games like this motivates you by itself.”
Milan, who were bought by a Chinese consortium last April, spent the best part of £200 million reshaping their squad last summer but have been somewhat indifferent on the domestic front and only sit seventh in Serie A. Vincenzo Montella started the campaign in the dugout but he’s since been replaced by that angry hobbit Gennaro Gattuso.
Arsenal travel to the San Siro on 8 March before hosting Milan at the Emirates on 15 March.
The draw in full
Lazio v Dynamo Kiev
RB Leipzig v Zenit St Petersburg
Atletico Madrid v Lokomotiv Moscow
CSKA v Lyon
Marseille v Athletic Bilbao
Sporting Lisbon v Viktoria Plzen
Borussia Dortmund v FC Salzburg
Milan v Arsenal
tough draw in the sense that they are basically in the same boat we are in that the Europa league is by far their best bet of making it back to the CL – which they desperately need to do financially.
I don’t think they need the money. It states that a Chinese consortium bought them under a year ago and they spend £200m last summer.
According to a lot of reports, they are in a financial crisis. Desperate to get champions football to gain financial help.
AC milan is in real trouble financially to the point where they might actually be seized by Elliot Management b/c they can’t refinance high interest loans they owe them. They’re effectively bordering on bankruptcy
https://www.ft.com/content/d8114654-e651-11e7-97e2-916d4fbac0da
Let’s buy the fuckers then
You could say one could feel sorry for them? I’d also say I feel sorry for them for being awful on the pitch, having won nothing majorly significant in a while and having a history of match fixing. Not to mention Berlusconi’s penchant for committing acts that any other court would slam him for; prostitues, corruption, blackmail, facism, racism, etc.
So AC Milan can write all the patronising pap they want, when we’re done eliminating them they can use those sheets to cry into.
… I hope.
This fixture really worries me a lot, especially with our away form this season. There’s a genuine possibility we could be out of the tie before the second leg again. And the way we are defending these days we will 100% need to score an away goal, but Danny cant hit a barn door at the moment, and we’re struggling to score goals from midfield.
In all honesty, I will be surprised if we make it into the round of 8.
Well at least somebody has their feet on the ground. Some people on here have plainly taken Gazedis’s infamous remark about ‘we are the next Bayern Munich’ to heart. We aren’t. For a supposedly front rank Club, Arsenal’s record in Europe is abysmal. The success – such as it is – was achieved by Bertie Mee 48 years ago and by GG 25 years ago. Since then – zilch. This might well be a poor Milan side compared to the past but when they step out on that pitch they represent a Club who has won the CL more times… Read more »
Sounds like we both need Flamini!
Rip off already those darn long sleeves 🙂
Wallpaper the dressing room with these comments. The fucking nerve of Milan. They’re a team in which Fabio fucking Borini is a regular starter and they say this about us?
Don’t do that. Bellerin might read them and it might affect his performance
Arsenal v. Milan. It has the ring of two sad old drunks getting into a fistfight.
Damn, I’m smiling but that hurts bad!
“Angry Hobbit Gennaro Gattuso”. Gold.
SOMETIMES MAYBE GOOD, SOMETIMES MAYBE SHIT.
Ah ah ah….. The Milano Legend
So a Scottish manager then?
Heh (reference to the “genetics” thing, right?) …I believe he (Gattuso) is married to a Scottish woman he met while playing for Rangers so, basically, yeah.
Finally the europa league gets interesting! And not least because of Mirabelli’s comments. Fair play to him….game on!
I love this shit, especially from a team that we can beat if we show up. Makes the win all the more sweet. …….now if we can just show up….
Pretty big if
Thst’s like WWE…sides talk thrash of each other develop the heat for the match and ultimately heel(milan) will lose to babyface( arsenal) …woo hoo
Oh right. Is football not real either then?
You know things have gotten bad here when a mid table serie A team are already claiming victory before the game has even started
Oh, do cheer up Mr. Grumpy pants.
Its banter and that from Milan’s side. Its all good. And Milan are a big club – one of the biggest in the world. They have 7 European cup/CL titles – to Arsenal’s none (2 if you count the CWC and Friar’s, but folks tend not to do that these days). Make no mistake, Arsenal goes into this as the underdog.
“Make no mistake, Arsenal goes into this as the underdog.” Speaking as an Italian who has watched Serie A for around 20 years, to this I can only say one word: Lol. Compared to certain previous Milan sides, their current side is pathetically poor quality-wise – in all positions. They were mid-table until a month ago for a reason. Now they have started to grind out some results, since Gattuso has succeeded in putting some fight in them. I can also only laugh at MIrabelli’s words. I hope he will have some nails left, after watching Milan parking the bus… Read more »
Which premier league club would you compare them to ability wise?
It’s a surprisingly difficult question, due to the great difference in style of play between PL and Serie A teams. In terms of quality they are certainly weaker than the current top PL 6, but I would be wary of comparing them directly to Leicester or Everton, for example.
It’s a terrible thing to say just before Sunday, but I would say that, ability wise, they are to Napoli now as we have been to Man Citeh these days, and we know what Citeh did to Napoli in the CL group stage recently.
Thanks for the perspective.
I would say Milan and Arsenal are in a very similar place right now in terms of quality. True, Arsenal aren’t what they used to be (as he rightly claims), but my goodness neither are Milan!
Verily I say on to thee….. We’ll crush the fuckers!..if only for trolling us on TV…cheeky bugger
Not well known, but this is in fact how Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount (though it’s “papyrus” instead of “TV” of course). The ancient Jewish equivalent of the mic drop.
I hope you’re right!
Arsenal could use an easier tie.
Actually I find it funny that AC Milan think they’re superior to us (at the moment) !!..
All this time I thought they’re the only European “elite” team inferior to us..
Anyway who ever loses is going to officially be the worst “elite” team in Europe
Crikey this is really accurate
I’d be pretty pissed and looking to make that guy eat his words if I were a player in the squad.
Unfortunately we don’t know what type of reaction we will get from the squad in the games.
Sigh.
Banter. That’s all.
One of my best buddies is Milanese, and I watch quite a bit of Milan with him. Milan is “bang average” to borrow another poster’s rating. Sitting 7th in Serie A. Though, since Gattuso took over, they are playing with much more bite and urgency. They lack creativity and their midfield is poor and have no killer goal scorer. But they have a really solid keeper, are young (minus Montolivo) and hungry. They will not be an easy opponent at San Siro.
7th in Serie A and 6th in BPL were considered as biggest EL favorite bets, how sad is that :))
Perfect draw I think. Needed to finally get an interesting tie and a match against a good team in which we’ve got a chance to go through but will provide a challenge feels like the kind of tie we need.
Well at least I’ve heard of them, may even watch this one.
Er, when you consider last night’s game he is right.
Wow the arogance, hahaha milan is in 7th place and have a starting line up filled of names like borini, curtone, romagnoli, suso, montolivo 35, bagila. Name one player that will get in our 11 despite playing shit.
We will gun them down especially after this comments.
Donnarumma seems like a decent keeper, mind you… And we can make decent keepers look like world class.
its one GK, name me one filled player that would get in our 11?
Milan have the worst season in their history with the worst player they have in their history and worst manager.
Bonucci
Donnarumma
Romagnoli (If you think Roma won’t get into your shitty defense, you surely have not watched him)
Calabria
Locatelli
Biglia
Kessie
Cutrone
Suso
Bonaventura
Forza Milan 😉
Lol. Started typing that we seem to do the opposite..then realised u were talking about opposition keepers
On the whole I agree, however Bonucci and Donnarumma would probably walk into our team at the moment. Attack wise they’re not so hot, Andre Silva score about as many strange Welbeck style goals as, well, Welbz does.
Have any one of you watched Bonucci this year at Milan after his transfer ?
He is shit and mostly at fault when milan concede goals, Bonucci is not that top defender everyone thought, it was the the back 3 of juve combine with him plus buffon that made him top class. Same in national team. Watch closely and you will see what am talking about.
If he was world class juve would have never let him go.
d
So sad. Even our opponents are mocking us now…
Don’t blame arsenal for san siro cuntyness, it is expected. There will be flares and simulation and all sorts of shit to come so get excited, and let’s show those fuckers that we are far superior, both club and fans.
At least we aren’t likely to be complacent against Milan in the way of Ostersund.
Wonder how Sir Chips or Stan are going to reply….
I still remember 2011 when we went into the League Cup final and lost to Birmingham. We were doing well at that time. We lost it in the last minute and then and I felt that was our downfall that season as Arsene couldn’t bring the morale back up. Barcelona beat us, Manure knocked us out of FA Cup by a team with 7 defenders, we lost to teams like Bolton.
We had to cling on to 4th place when at one point we were close to 1st or 1st.
This weekend, we have to get a good result.
Let’s shove those words down their throats. We’re a better side than they are. C’mon Arsenal!
Just need to show the fight if this is really true from his mouth and not twisted by media.
AC Milan, finally we can take this competition serious perhaps
Saving this link for use after the tie. Let’s hope they eat their words.
With no Aubameyang or Lacazette, and Welbeck rapidly eroding his good will with the fans (and probably with the manager too), what would the crowd here do up front in this tie? Eddie? Welbeck anyway? Two up top or some other improvisation?
I love the idea of playing welbeck and eddie up top. Why not? What have we got to lose? Grab a quick couple of goals and then really take it to Milan. Come back to the emirates with a 3-0 lead and then barely hang on and loose 3-1 but at least we advance.
You have a rather vivid imagination. One in which Welbeck scores.
Maybe we’ll bake him a nice lasagna.
It’s a tough draw, but one that can be won…that is as long as we stop fannying around with our seemingly devine belief that because we’ve always been in the CL we will win Europa on that basis alone. Time for AW to focus on Europa for sure, as it respresents a great chance at a major trophy. But unfortunately we have no simple right to win it simply because we are “The Arsenal”. We’ll win it only if we play well, & yesterday was not the best of omens. Hopefully the players & manager have learned the lesson &… Read more »
we are not the club we were before but brah.. u forgot to look at the mirror..
Fingers crossed for Lacazette to make a rapid recovery and be fit for both legs….Danny Welbeck great athlete, footballer he is not.
At least he called us a big club. Not many ppl out there who would
“This is definitely not the same Arsenal as back then”
And you’re definitely not the same AC Milan as back then either.
I feel sorry for us but for different reasons
This is one of the weakest AC Milan teams for a long while.
Having said that, we are reliant on Welbeck up top and we are ourselves temperamental making hard work of getting past Ostersund and lying 6th in the league (they are 7th)
So…
Again begs the question why we felt so compelled to replace Giroud with Aubameyang who is cup tied in the one ticket that may offer us a good chance of sneaking back into CL.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones…
Milan can kiss my arse
This would have been a decent game in 2007
Could of been worse, could of been Atletico Madrid! I’m guessing Laca isn’t back in time for the first leg….please play anyone else upfront than Welbeck…even if it’s Cech!
More cheap Chinese rubbish….
I’m not confident of much at Arsenal at the moment but I’m confident we’ll beat this lot.
AC Milan in a financial crisis? Doesn’t a certain very rich man called Mathieu Flamini live in Milan? Let him put in a cheeky bid for the club!
No Flamini doesn’t live in Milan.he lives in Spain and currently plays for Getafe
Can’t beat them, then we don’t deserve to win it. I agree with those that want easy draws, but our club shouldn’t fear anyone in this competition. That we do is testimony to the stagnation of the club.