Intro:

Arsenal have the proverbial sporting mountain to climb on Tuesday night, as they take on AC Milan at the Emirates Stadium in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League last 16 tie.

Arsene Wenger's men are 4-0 down from the first leg - and face the task of becoming only the fourth side in European history to overturn such a deficit.

However, Wenger said on Monday (5th March) that he will put out the strongest side available and urged his players to forget all about the first leg and just keep going forward in the hope of causing one of the biggest upsets for years.

Script:

Since losing their Champions League last 16 first round tie 4-0 at AC Milan, Arsenal have shown their ability to stage a comeback.

2-0 down to Tottenham, the Gunners prevailed 5-2 and on Saturday a late Robin van Persie goal completed a 2-1 turnaround at Liverpool.

Can Arsenal make it a hat-trick and really keep their European season alive?

SOUNDBITE: (English) Arsene Wenger, Arsenal coach

"Yes, there is a real possibility, of course. Football is football, you know. We lost 4-0 at Milan, but thay had five shots on target and we had 55 per cent possession there and we didn't play well at all. Two things that will change. If they can score four, we can do it as well, why not? At least we will try. We know that we can put in a better performance and you can tell Milan that tomorrow we play on a football pitch, a real football pitch."

Robin van Persie has notched an impressive 25 league goals this season, and Wenger insists his best players will play against Milan.

SOUNDBITE: (English) Arsene Wenger, Arsenal coach

"How will we approach it (the game) is that we have of course our drive forward. I think just the best way is to ignore the first game and do what we did against Tottenham. We were 2-0 down, we just kept going, just because we wanted to win the game and that's what we want to do again tomorrow."

Wenger has spent 16 years with the North London club, and he had sympathy for Chelsea's latest managerial casualty Andre Villas-Boas.

SOUNDBITE: (English) Arsene Wenger, Arsenal coach

(On the sacking of Andre Villas-Boas at Chelsea on Sunday)

"I don't know, I just can say I feel sorry for Andre Villas-Boas because I know him and I like him as a manager and as a man and I feel sorry for him and sad that every time a manager loses his job, because it's a job that requires a full committment and I think he did that and I'm sorry that he wasn't given enough time to do his job."

Only three times in European club history has a team recovered from a 4-0 deficit before, the last time being over a quarter of a century ago.

On Tuesday night, Wenger and Arsenal will hope to reset that counter to zero.