Petr Cech insists Arsenal knew they would win against Olympiacos to progress to the knockout stages of the Champions League.
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Olivier Giroud was Arsenal’s hero as the Gunners and Chelsea succeeded where Manchester United failed a day earlier to advance to the draw for the last 16 of the Champions League. “When we look at who we lost [to injuries] in the last three weeks – Coquelin, Cazorla and Sánchez – and we came here with all the other players who were already out, not many people gave us a chance”, Wenger added. The kind of performance we produced in a very heated atmosphere was ideal – on the mental front and the tactical side as well.
Theo Walcott believes that Arsenal will be a team that the rest of Europe now wants to avoid in Monday’s Champions League draw but has admitted that the players were guilty of complacency in losing last season to Monaco.
They haven’t bowed out at the group stage since 1999-2000. At 2-0 we had to push for a third goal, it was too unsafe to stay at 2-0. We needed a complete team performance and that’s what it was. The truth is that we fell somewhat below the strength of our team.
Arsenal could face: Real Madrid, Wolfsburg, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Zenit.
Ozil again started everything with a clipped pass to Campbell, with the former Olympiacos loanee controlling well under pressure before sliding a flawless pass into the path of Giroud for the France striker to sweep home.
“I think Arsene Wenger has shown a lot of faith in the team and maybe it’s because he’s seen them do stuff right in training but we just don’t see that consistent good play all the time”.
“We had a flawless performance”.
And it all went according to plan in Greece, as Giroud ensured Arsenal joined Bayern Munich in the round of 16 with two second-half goals after opening the scoring in the 29th minute.
I am writing this article before Arsenal take on Olympiacos in the final Champions League group game.
At most Arsenal needed just one more goal to go through, but Giroud got them two for good measure, stabbing home after good work from Joel Campbell just after half-time and sealing the result when he stroked home a penalty with 25 minutes remaining.
“He scores goals when we need him”.
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“That first goal was key”.
