Arsenal Find Reason to Believe in Spirited Champions League Exit vs. AC Milan

LONDON — Arsenal merely threatened a miracle against AC Milan at the Emirates, but in their rousing Champions League outro can be found a reason to believe they'll be back in the competition next season.

How quickly things change in football.

Just three weeks ago, Arsene Wenger's team delivered themselves as a sacrificial offering to the Italian champions at the San Siro and were battered within an inch of their young lives. On Tuesday night, they were a team reborn.

Bristling with attacking exuberance and a newfound belief, Arsenal completely overwhelmed Milan in a pulsating first half and threatened one of the more unlikely comebacks in Champions League history.

Never before had a team recovered from a 4-0 first-leg deficit in the Champions League, but after 45 minutes you fully believed Arsenal could and would do it. They were that good, that dominant. Milan just couldn't live with them.

Wenger's team-sheet was a statement of intent in itself. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gervinho, Theo Walcott and Tomas Rosicky all started alongside Robin van Persie. Only Alex Song appeared a defensively-minded presence in the midfield.

Arsenal were going for it. And if they needed any encouragement, it arrived with two goals inside the first 30 minutes—the first from Laurent Koscielny, the second a deserved reward for the imperious Rosicky, whose fleet-footed magic only exaggerated Mark van Bommel's latest turn as Milan's oafish enforcer.

All but the colorful Italian corner of the Emirates was on its feet, and they would rise again before the break, when Van Persie scored goal No. 32 for the season from the penalty spot.

Suddenly the fantastical seemed possible, but Massimiliano Allegri now had 15 minutes to galvanize his team, and the result was a second-half Milan set up to kill Arsenal's dream.

The Italians came out with fresh impetus. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Antonio Nocerino both had chances to score, while at the opposite end Milan adopted a more familiar spoiling game that starved Arsenal's attack of the oxygen they'd been gorging in the first half.

Still Arsenal had one glorious chance to take the game to extra time, but Van Persie—for once—misfired and Wenger's team had to make do with an honorable discharge from the 2011-12 Champions League.

It was a good deal more than most of us expected three weeks ago.

At the San Siro, Allegri's battle-hardened collective exposed the Gunners as the defensively naive, lightweight, gutless outfit that's been flattering to deceive for six long years in North London. Arsenal were unforgivably awful and rightly pilloried for a performance that embarrassed the club's grand tradition.

The aftermath was desperately bleak. Wenger was looking into the abyss and there were plenty ready to push him in. It was Arsepocalpyse Now.

But there's nothing like a rousing victory against your bitter rivals to stem the tide of disillusionment—especially when said bitter rivals are dining out on their supposed superiority. Tottenham led 2-0, only to lose 5-2. Smiles returned to Gooner faces.

Next up, Liverpool, who dominated at Anfield but came upon an inspired Wojciech Szczesny and the irrepressible Van Persie. Somehow Arsenal won 2-1.

In those victories Arsenal found a strength of character. They found reason to believe, and it was further reinforced by the remarkable first-half performance Wenger's team produced against Milan.

There is still much to be done to return the club to where they once were under Wenger, but if Arsenal can carry the spirit they've shown in their last three games into the remainder of the season, a top four Premier League finish is theirs for the taking.

"It is a big disappointment for the players but the team have grown together," Wenger told reporters after the game. And you knew exactly what he meant.

After the massacre in Milan, an epiphany at the Emirates?

Relevant links

- Read Mike Cummings' live blog of the game

- Arsenal vs. Milan: 6 Things We Learned

- Mikhail Turner's Arsenal Player Ratings

- Arsenal FC Matthew Snyder on how it should have ended