The saying goes that you can never win anything with kids. It is one of those poor ideas that football has had the misfortune of adopting from Alan Hansen. Two of the most impressive sides of the last 15 years were teams of very good kids who dominated at home and in Europe.

I am talking about the young Ajax team of 1993-1995, and the young Manchester United team of 1999. Of interest to us today is the Ajax team.

As the young Arsenal team today face AC Milan in the Champions League second round, it is clear they have their work cut out for them. But so did that famous Ajax team which defeated AC Milan, also then defending champions, three times in one Champions League season.

Ajax were in the same kind of domestic form that Arsenal have been in this season. The average age of the squad was young and the first team consisted of several teenagers including Kluivert, Seedorf and Kanu. Players like Edgar Davids, the De Boer twins, Reizeger, Marc Overmars, and Ed Van der Sar were all under the age of 23. Even older players like Finidi George and Jari Litmanen were under 25. But the backbone of the team consisted of two old men: Danny Blind and Frank Rijkaard who were two very experienced veterans who had won everything in football. Just like with Arsenal isn't it?

There were more similarities. Like this present Arsenal team, that great Ajax team scored goals by the bucketful, with goals coming from all over the squad. They loved to attack, could pass and did pass the ball to death at pace. They were devastating on the counter attack and had big strong centre-forwards in Kluivert and Kanu. Their wing backs, De Boer and Reiziger, had great pace and were very good on the tackle. Edgar Davids played the Flamini role with his boundless energy and running in midfield playing a more

The only dissimilarities perhaps was that Ajax had three players that Arsenal have no equivalent of; Finidi "Finito" George, Jari Litmanen and Marc Overmars. Litmanen was a Denni Bergkamp, a player who finished brilliantly but also could also give the brilliant penultimate pass with vision and precision, though one can argue that crocky Van Persie has a bit of that in him. In George and Overmars, Ajax had blistering pace and crossing precision on the wings. George, in fact was never recognised for being in 1994-95, the world's best crosser of the ball.

In any case, the similarities are uncanny. Michael Reiziger and Gael Clichy even look alike physically and have the same gait on the ball. Watching that Ajax team was sometimes dizzying as they sometimes made a 30-pass move leading to a corner kick. They could also vary it as Arsenal has learnt to do this season. They could knock the ball long to Kluivert who was devastating in the air like Adebayor.

As Arsenal face Milan at the San Siro tonight they have to look to do what worked for Ajax in 1993 at the San Siro. They have to scare AC Milan. The way Ajax did it was to keep it tight in midfield and close down spaces and then to be devastatingly precise and quick on the counter-attack.

The way to scare the old AC Milan defence is to aim to get one or two very quick and very precise counter-attacks in the first 15 minutes. Even if Arsenal don't score, there'll be some level of confusion in the experienced Milan defence. The way it works is that Milan would look to do what they have always looked to do for years; keep it tight in midfield and then knick a goal. A quick counter-attack would put individual defenders under pressure, knowing they can't match the younger players for pace and precision. They would take fewer risks and that would make their midfield play less effective.

Here is a link to Ajax's 0-2 victory at the San Siro in Autumn 1994. Watch the second goal. Ajax win the ball in midfield through Seedorf, who knocks it upfield one-time to Kluivert who lays it off for Litmanen who is running up from deep, who lays the ball 40 yards along the ground at pace to George behind Maldini. Cue panic in the AC Milan defence as George gets to the ball first, resists the attentions of Maldini and has his cross diverted into his own net by the great and immensely experienced Paolo Maldini.

Ajax went on to defeat Milan in the final to win the cup. That year they won every trophy in sight, winning the Eredivisie title, the Dutch FA Cup, the Champions League, The European Super Cup, and the Club World Cup. In the 1995 season they went through the season unbeaten before losing to Juventus on penalties in the Champions League Final to signal the end of an era as they sold their best players.

The Arsenal game would not boil down to the first 15 minutes. Even if Arsenal score first in that first 6th of the game, there is no doubt that Milan can score two goals. The key would be for Arsenal to keep up the tempo and pressure, and keep the fear in the Milan defence for a crucial period. If they don't score, they have to do what Wenger always says; they have to keep playing their game, but do something they sometimes fail to do. They have to defend heroically one-on-one, meaning that each player has to win his own individual battle. In any case they have something they can rely on that they have in common with the other great team of kids mentioned at the beginning of the article. They can always nick late goals and should fancy themselves to do it against an old and tired Milan defence. The reason they do it is superior fitness and they have to make that count.

Arsenal can upstage Milan. In any case it would make a fascinating contest. Now I have to leave for Milan. Come on Arsenal!

One of the most ubiquitous chants among pundits in the ongoing Premier League campaign is the one that says Manchester United have more strength in depth than Arsenal. After having written Arsenal off at the beginning of the season and then being proven wrong, they can not say the team that has lost 4 times this season is the stronger one. Instead they talk about "strength in depth". So let's examine the two squads.

 

Manchester United have 28 players in their squad. The players are:

Goalkeepers:

1. Edwin Van Der Sar
12. Ben Foster
29. Tomasz Kusaczak
Tom Heaton

Defenders:

2. Gary Neville (captain)
3. Patrice Evra
5. Rio Ferdinand
6. Wes Brown
15. Nemanja Vidic
19. Gerard Pique
22. John O'Shea
23. Johnny Evans
25. Danny Simpson
27. Mikael Silvestre

Midfielders:

4. Owen Hargreaves
7. Cristiano Ronaldo
8. Anderson
11. Ryan Giggs (vice-captain)
13. Park Ji-Sung
16. Michael Carrick
17. Nani
18. Paul Scholes
24. Darren Fletcher
33. Chris Eagles

Forwards:

9. Louis Saha
10. Wayne Rooney
21. Dong Fangzhuo
32. Carlos Tevez

 

Arsenal's squad consists of the following players:

1. Jens Lehmann

2. Abou Diaby

 

Myles Palmer has this take on United and Arsenal in the Premiership title race. What I like about Mr. Palmer is how bold he usually is with his predictions. What I am amazed at however is how often he is wrong.

I think the title is Arsenal's to lose and not United's to lose. That takes nothing away from United as the defending champions. We have a better squad and contrary to what Palmer, Roy Keane and Tevez think are stronger. I don't say it as a fan.

Wenger says this is the best squad he's had as Manager. i trust his judgement over most people's and think if this team don't win the league this season they will never win it. They know that. Wenger knows that. The club knows that.

They will fight all the way.

On the other hand the Champion's League is United's priority. They will drop many points in the League as they did last year. I don't see Giggs and Scholes having big seasons. Their midfield is not creating enough.

The lesson I have learnt from Ferguson's teams over the years is that the hungriest and fittest always win. Their treble year was won with kids killing teams of in the last quarter of the game. They were hungry as hell.

Now the hungriest and fittest team in the league is Arsenal. I am backing Arsenal all the way. The signs are there too.

What some don't realise is that last year was the season in which we were close but not good enough. Injuries to Henry and Van Persie meant we lost at least 20-30 goals they would have scored and created. That was worth at least 15 points and would have had an impact on the final standings.

This is the season in which we have to win or it all breaks down for Arsenal. The stakes are clear, and by all indications, the boys know it and are going for it.

The kooks at BBC and ESPN and all the usual punditocracy are suggesting Arsenal are top only because we have not played tough teams yet. In reality we've gone 20 games unbeaten stretching past Chelsea last season. Another set of idiots have said Arsenal are top of the league because United underestimated Arsenal. Nonsense! Everybody knew this was going to be a tough season. Even if they underestimated Arsenal, they did not expect Chelsea and Liverpool to be stuttering as they are now. The reason we have dictated the early pace in the Premiership is Arsene Wenger. It is a reason he was severely criticised for; and that's not buying a platoon of new players in close season. It takes time for teams to blend. It takes more than one season for most players to adjust to the Premiership.

This season we have played 3 teams in the Top 6 in the league and beaten all three. We have played three Derbies and won all three. We beat a swashbuckling Sevilla team. Our kids spanked a Newcastle team that was desperate for success in the Carling Cup.

Some people erroneously think of this Arsenal teams in terms of their birth dates not in terms of their experience. We have a team that has been to the Champion's League Final. Some of these kids; Fabregas and Van Persie for example played a peripheral part in the invincibles campaign and have the medals to prove it. Arsenal had more players in the last World Cup than any other team in Europe. More than Barcelona. More than AC Milan. More than Chelsea or United. Adebayor, the leggy inconsistent that he is scored 11 goals to singlehandedly take Togo to the World Cup. Togo! That's like Craig Bellamy single-handedly taking Wales to the World Cup. We have a young team, but they are not so inexperienced. Nobody with any credibility worth a fiver doubts the quality of this Arsenal team.

The most important factor is that these guys are good. We forget that in a way, United's resurgence is based on kids. It was Rooney and Ronaldo and Carrick who drove them last season. Our kids are in the same league as those guys. I'd say only Ronaldo is better than anyone we have. Our kids realise that this is the time for them to make their names and become the best.

I am betting on them to be the real deal. I was one who said so at the beginning of the season, even though I doubted how little they would suffer the loss of Henry.

That is not to say that Arsenal would walk to the title. Of course it is not guaranteed that any team at all would win. We're just 25% into the season and nobody can predict this early. The best we can do is read the early signs and try to determine who are the favourites. A complete reading of the signs places Arsenal and not United or Man City or Chelsea or Liverpool as favourites.