Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger hailed Olivier Giroud’s “perfect performance” as the French striker’s hat-trick completed a remarkable escape act in the Champions League soccer on Wednesday night.
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“We played Monaco past year and we thought it would maybe a bit easier and it was not the case. Not many people gave us a chance but we are a real team”.
When asked whether it ranked as one of his best European wins, he replied: “Yes, certainly because we needed a ideal performance to score without conceding”.
On these pages, we compiled the best of the internet’s savaging of Wenger after the 3-2 home defeat by Olympiakos, and then swiftly produced a gallery of Wenger’s most humiliating defeats. Hopefully if we can get players back fit as well, the squad will be even stronger than it is now. “We needed something special to come back like we did and tonight we needed a complete team performance”, he added.
Arsene Wenger’s side kept themselves in the competition with the victory in Piraeus and maintained their record of getting out of the group in each of the last 15 seasons.
A 5-1 defeat to Bayern Munich last month left Arsenal dead last in their group, needing two wins from two in order to finish runners-up behind the Germans. As history goes we underestimated some of the games and we had a mountain to climb, but this time Olympiakos was not just sitting in the clouds.
It was Campbell who created Giroud’s second of the night just four minutes after the restart – it was the goal they needed, but that wasn’t enough for Arsenal or Giroud.
Gunners midfielder Mathieu Flamini says the extra competition from Theo Walcott has ensured his fellow Frenchman had to raise his game to win back his starting place.
Not the greatest lot to chose from, but apart from Barcelona and depending on the form of Real the other teams are ones we’d have a decent chance to beat.
The hostility quickly turned to stunned silence as Olivier Giroud got the ball rolling for the visitors with a well directed header via the outstretched hand of goalkeeper Roberto, highlighted by a superb reverse pass by Mesut Ozil that found Aaron Ramsey to get in behind the Greeks’ defence.
Chelsea progressed to the last 16 as Group G winners with a 2-0 win at home to Jose Mourinho’s old side Porto as Ivan Marcano’s early own goal put them ahead and Willian scored in the second half.
“It is true that at 2-0 we meant to take risks, to keep trying”.
Giroud’s performance was made all the more impressive by the fact he was on the receiving end of some very physical defending.
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Now Arsenal’s minds now turn to avoiding a sixth straight round of 16 exit and Giroud declared: “We want to go as far as we can”.
