Arsene Wenger hailed a “perfect” performance from Arsenal after they secured their place in the last 16 of the Champions League with a 3-0 victory at Olympiakos.
Advertisement
Arsenal needed an emphatic win to leapfrog Olympiakos into second place in Group F and reach the competition’s last 16 and had Giroud to thank for leading the cavalry charge in a 3-0 romp. When you look at who we’ve lost in the last three weeks, we’ve lost Coquelin, Cazorla and Alexis among other long-term injuries, not many people gave us a chance.
“We showed great spirit against Olympiakos and I think it was the ideal performance as we did not concede any goals”.
The manager stressed that the results had made them stronger and strengthened their belief, adding that they were looking forward to the upcoming matches. Nine times out of 10 you are out [after such a poor start] and we needed something special and we needed a complete team performance, and it was.
Arsenal went into the game knowing they had to beat their opponents by two clear goals, or else win while scoring a minimum of three goals themselves, to progress to the knockout stages.
“At 2-0 we had to push for a third goal, it was too unsafe to stay at 2-0”.
Arsene Wenger’s side needed to pull out something special in a hostile Greek atmosphere to fight their way out of a corner as earlier losses away to Dinamo Zagreb and home to Olympiakos, two very average teams, put them on the back foot. “It’s the Champions League, so whoever you get in the draw is going to be hard because you’ve seen teams struggle when they should go through and should be winning”. Now he is back and Matthieu Flamini believes that having the Englishman waiting in the wings has given Giroud the impetus to up his game. Because of the first games we were not in an easy position and we have shown tonight our strength.
“It was a ideal [hat-trick] because he scored a header, one with a good combination – what I must say was a great pass from [Joel] Campbell – and a penalty on top of that”.
“If you look at the number of games and number of goals he has scored, you have to give him credit”.
“In the Champions League it’s one level up and we need to be all focused”.
And Flamini said: “I think competition is very important in the big teams”.
Advertisement
“We obviously don’t want Barcelona as they are a top team but for the rest, we will see”, the 31-year-old told reporters.
