Arsenal capitalized on a disappointing home performance by Olympiakos to win 3-0 in Piraeus on Wednesday night and clinch the second spot in the pool’s group behind Bayern Munich, advancing to the last 16 of the Champions League.
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While there has been frustration for Arsenal in bowing out of the Champions League at the Round of 16 for the past five seasons, an exit on Wednesday would mean Wenger failing to lead his side past the first group stage for the first time in 16 years.
Arsenal, on the other hand, will be missing a long list of their top players, with injuries to Alexis Sánchez, Santi Cazorla, Francis Coquelin, Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta, Danny Welbeck, Tomas Rosicky, and David Ospina.
Wenger’s men do need a huge result as they must win by two clear goals or beat Olympiacos on the head-to-head to qualify for the knock-out stages.
“It is a special night for us because, as we said before the game, we were in escape mode”.
The draw for the first knockout round takes place on Monday and Arsenal will face one of Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, Wolfsburg or Zenit St Petersburg. The game we played was very positive, maybe we rushed it in the last 10 minutes.
The France global then made it 2-0 four minutes after half-time when he coolly slotted home from close range after neat build-up play from Joel Campbell. “If we manage to score once then Arsenal must score many more goals, and this is pressure for them”, the 27-year-old said.
It’s got to be Olivier Giroud for the way he applied the finishing touches to an accomplished team performance.
“I’m very proud of the team because we needed to be right mentally and tactically and at 2-0 we needed to push for a third because it was risky”.
Three points behind them are Olympiakos with nine as they hold the final spot in the next round of European competition. “If we score an early goal, I’m confident that we can win this game and go through”. The hosts usually set up quite defensively when they play, and there is no reason why they shouldn’t tonight, as a draw will be enough to see them through. The Gunners didn’t have the best of starts to the campaign with a couple of losses but recovered and now have the opportunity to make it out of the group stage with a two-goal victory over Olympiakos.
“We want to go as far as we can in the Champions League and my personal target is to reach at least the quarter-final”.
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Campbell opened the scoring in Arsenal’s 3-1 victory over Sunderland on Saturday and is relishing the chance to try and keep Arsenal in Europe’s most prestigious club competition.
