Double-up Danny in diving row
Gunners rout Milan after soft penalty
By the time Danny Welbeck had nodded in his second goal of the night, Rino Gattuso was over the worst of it and his face was returning to its normal colour.
Only four minutes remained by this point, Arsenal were into the last eight of the europa League and Arsene Wenger’s alternative route back into the Champions League was still open.
It was Welbeck’s first which was the problem: a penalty, a blatant dive, the turning point of the tie, the trigger for the notorious Gattuso temper. he was still seething at half-time, unable to resist the urge to hound referee Jonas eriksson down the tunnel.
When Suso was booked for a dive early in the second half, all eyes turned to the touchline just to see if the AC Milan boss would spontaneously combust.
his team had opened with energy and purpose at the emirates as they sought to make amends for a 2-0 defeat in the first leg and hakan Calhanoglu pulled one back with a sweet strike from distance.
the goal meant the tie was alive but the goal also seemed to rouse Arsenal from their lethargy. Almost immediately they found a better tempo and greater urgency.
Welbeck darted into the area, collected a pass from henrikh Mkhitaryan, searched for contact from full back Ricardo Rodriguez and crashed to the ground.
eriksson, the Swedish referee who once incurred the wrath of the placid Manuel Pellegrini, seemed prepared to ignore the appeals of the home crowd only to change his mind on the advice of one of his additional assistants.
Stefan Johannesson had been standing beside the goal when Welbeck fell at his feet. Nobody in the ground had a better view, so the referee took Johannesson’s advice, yet there was no evidence of any contact as the footage was replayed time and again on TV.
If anything Welbeck seemed to trip himself in his desperation to throw back a leg in search of Rodriguez. ‘ english players have learned very quickly and might be the masters now,’ said Wenger prophetically last month when asked about Dele Alli’s habit of falling over.
Welbeck, recalled to the england squad yesterday, picked himself up to convert from the spot and restore a two- goal margin on aggregate.
It was his first european goal since October 2014, when he scored a Champions League hattrick against Galatasaray in only his fifth appearance for Arsenal.
Milan responded, fuelled by anger. there was a flurry of yellow cards and pressure on David Ospina’s goal and more pressure on referee eriksson to compensate for the penalty decision. An appeal for handball against Calum Chambers was waved away, as was one for a foul by hector Bellerin.
Patrick Cutrone and Suso went close and Ospina made saves to deny substitute Nikola Kalinic and turn over a deflection off Shkodran Mustafi. Arsenal resisted, however, and stretched away with late goals as their opponents took risks, left holes at the back and faded. Granit Xhaka scored the second, a long- range effort which really ought to have been saved.
Milan’s highly rated goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnrumma dived to his left to reach Xhaka’s drive, but pushed the ball across goal and watched as it spun over the line.
Welbeck added the third, a simple header from close range after a good run and cross by Jack Wilshere and a save from Donnarumma to deny Aaron Ramsey.
the late goals made it feel like a stroll when it was not. Arsenal do not do much at the moment without first shredding nerves.
they survived a scare in the first minute when Andre Silva lashed a very good chance into the sidenetting and lost captain Laurent Koscielny to a back injury with 10 minutes gone.
Overall, however, they deserved to win the tie. Across the two legs they were the better team and they have climbed from their
trough of woeful form, triggered by the Carabao Cup final humiliation at the hands of Manchester City, to move on in Europe.
The draw for the quarter-finals appears competitive but they are in it and Gattuso is not.