While Wenger cut a frustrated figure, Olympiakos manager Marco Silva was revelling in his club’s first win in England after 12 consecutive defeats.
Advertisement
Esteban Cambiasso’s experience combined with the unflagging energy of Pajtim Kasami and Kostas Fortounis provided the midfield platform upon which Olympiacos constructed their outstanding 3-2 victory at Arsenal FC.
Their chances or escaping from Group F are now hanging by a thread with two games against Bayern Munich still to come.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has lashed out at his critics over his selection of David Ospina to start in goal during their UEFA Champions League match against Olympiacos on Tuesday.
Wenger had rested Cech for the defeat in Croatia and benched his lone summer signing again, but refused to blame that decision on what could prove to be a damaging defeat. I think his issue is that Arsene has not won as much or achieved as much as he has – yet still gets as many plaudits. “And I know many things that you don’t know”.
“Ospina played 19 games a year ago and kept 14 clean sheets and last week at Tottenham he had a fantastic game [in the Capital One Cup]”.
It remains to be seen how the situation develops in the coming weeks and months, but Wenger will hope to improve his side’s consistency which in turn should silence the talk of his top players leaving the club.
“We rushed a bit and not everyone came back to a defensive position, like we should have done”, Mertesacker said.
“I make the decisions for the team and I’m responsible for it”, Wenger added. “You can’t select a team by making a call before the game and getting everybody’s opinion”.
“We didn’t make mistakes, it was just big quality from them“, Ranieri said after Arsenal beat his team 5-2 in Leicester City’s first loss of the season.
That means the poor performances against Zagreb and Olypiakos have already cost Arsenal a potential £2.22 million but there is a further £4.44 million at stake in the remaining group games. “I just can’t understand it”, Wright said, as quoted by The Sunday. They had four shots on goal and we conceded three goals. “We always respect our opponents but we were never scared and never thought we couldn’t make it”. We know that there are a lot of differences between our team and others like Bayern (Munich) and Arsenal. We cannot afford to drop points now against anyone at home. It is either Oxlade-Chamberlain or Ramsey or Cazorla or Ramsey.
“They took the lead three times easily”.
Then in the 65th minute Walcott returned the favor to Sanchez by chipping a pass into the box, and Sanchez was able to get his head on it to tie up the score at 2.
Despite the hosts going behind in the 33rd minute from a deflected goal, Walcott levelled up the match two minutes later.
No sooner had Arsenal recovered, they hit the self-destruct button again.
For somebody who’s not playing often – and this is a must-win game – how can you put Ospina in goal?
Advertisement
Arsenal lacked a decisive pass in the final third.
