If they were fixing it because of the prestige of Man U and Milan wouldn’t they be keeping those two apart to set up the glamour tie for the later rounds?
Which is basically the point of seeding in sporting competition, because why would you engineer the best matches to occur early in a competition?
Your theory doesn’t seem to fit conventional wisdom imo.
Not per se imo. Semi-final and final are always going to be interesting. With this draw you have United/Milan vs Arsenal or Spurs on the cards. If not for this fixture this round in the EL would be really boring. Not to say the risk that one of the two gets eliminated.
Off track but I’ve always hated seeding and the feeling of quasi-corruption I get from it.
The magic of cup football is watching an underdog carry themselves to a final on the back of slaying giants. Great for the natural fans, great for the sport.
Seeding essentially says fuck that, the final has to be about TV money and if the draws don’t sort that out our refs will.
I agree that it’s early days for United to be facing Milan for it to be any sort of flag ship tie, great for us though.
United, Spurs and Emery still in this. Just know that the poisoned chalice that this season is isn’t emptied yet and we’re destined to be knocked out by either one of these three.
You guys have no chance against United. Way too many missing players.
I know, just like we had no chance against Verona, only bad thing will be premier league team fans saying how shit serie a is, when basically 75% of our first team is out and our squad backup isn’t better than that of the mid table teams.
Yeah, but your man Pogba is out, that surely gives Milan a chance? 
They’d probably have been totally smashed regardless, remember us taking them to absolute pieces a couple years ago despite being one of the most dogshit Arsenal sides of my life (though I’m sure Milan fans would have said similar about their side at the time ofc, tbf)
They’re actually an infinitely better team than they were then though.
Kessie, Bennacer and Tonali are very high quality midfielders.
Donnarumma is one of the best in Europe. Calabria is no longer shit and scared of everything and has developed into a very good right back. The CBs are strong and Theo has a shout at being one of the better LBs in Europe based on the last two seasons.
Only real issues they have are in attack but the team is actually just much better now than the one we beat that’s for sure.
Yeah, I did intend to allude to that in mentioning that Milan would have probably said similar about how poor they were back then. I do appreciate this side is much better. I do also think this Man U side is better than the one we dismantled Milan with, so I think thats a factor to be considered too if we talk up Milans improvement since then.
I still think United would have comfortably handled them though, Italian sides have a bit of work to do before I respect them in Europe again. But its impossible to prove either way I guess, seeing as they won’t be able to field a full strength side, so we won’t get to see for ourselves.
Yeah we’re not that same team at all. Back in December we’d have taken anyone in the premier league except city.
Stand by what I said, think they’d have still handled you comfortably.
And you’re entitled to your opinion, but you can’t have been watching our games back then. We have been torn to shreds by injuries I’ve never seen a team go through, not even arsenal has had it this bad the whole time I’ve taken interest in them.
We’ve fielded our best eleven once this season, but we were absolutely flying and ripping through teams, comfortably winning and defending solidly. At least you accept your point is moot since we don’t have anything close to an even half full strength team.
As for that milan team who arsenal beat, the team we fielded on Sunday (4 starters and 7 players who would barely scrape into a bottom of the table team) would’ve beaten that Milan team by a very comfortable margin. That was the worst era in the clubs history in my adult life.
As I said, most Italian clubs have to earn back some respect in Europe for me after years if being taken apart by English teams. Until then I see evidence of you being up for it in Europe, I won’t expect much from you.
Much like I wouldnt expect fans on a Milan/Atleti/whatever forum to respect us as a European side, I don’t thinkvyou should expect many on here to be showing reverence for Milan these days.
For me, til proven otherwise you’re still useless in Europe.
Sure, but Thursday with 75% of the team missing isn’t really something to factor into your opinion, as you did concede. It’s bad timing, had it happened in December then I’m certain you’d have realised.
Besides, this is only europa, and as shown by juve and inter, they aren’t clubs who have it in them to do well in the main competition, and rarely ever have been, consistently embarrass us in Europe year in year our.
It’s actually kind of hilarious that when talking about once great clubs like Milan, United and Arsenal the conversation is about who is less shit while we all battle to the death in the fucking Europa League.
@Gio do the line ups make you feel more or less confident?
this is brilliant.
Robbie Savage = instant mute
Away goal for Milan!
