Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger toasted one of the greatest European nights of his long tenure after Olivier Giroud scored a hat-trick to complete a Champions League great escape in Greece last night.
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Arsenal’s French forward Olivier Giroud (center) celebrates scoring 0-3 with teammates during the UEFA Champions League Group F football match between Olympiacos and Arsenal at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus. We played Monaco previous year and we thought it would be a bit easier maybe, and it was not the case, so whoever we play we will give 100%. “Overall if you look at the numbers since the start of the Champions League group stage, we have played with 10 men in Zagreb, we scored an own goal at home to Olympiacos, every single game we were a bit unlucky but if we get through we will be unsafe that is for sure”. With Laurent Koscielny a rock in defence, Arsenal looked solid throughout and when Omar Elabdellaoui handled Nacho Monreal’s effort in the Olympiakos boss, Giroud converted the resulting spot-kick to put the Gunners 3-0.
“I think it will make us stronger and strengthen the belief of the squad”. When you do that, it creates a positive memory for the rest of the season.
Theo Walcott today claimed Europe will be running scared of Arsenal after they thrashed Olympiakos to reach the last 16 of the Champions League. We knew we had to push for the third goal because it’s very risky at 2-0, and we had the ideal game.
“We were in escape mode before the game and we needed something special”.
“It was a good performance against Olympiakos and we showed great team spirit”. They didn’t want to go to the Europa League.
“It took a while for them to overcome early nerves”, says Amy Lawrence in the Guardian, “but once the flickers of optimism turned into a flow, Arsenal constructed the result they deserved”.
“This is a team, and they showed it again”.
Monday’s draw will present the usual nightmare scenario of a tie against the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid, combined with a potentially less hazardous pairing with Wolsburg or Zenit Saint Petersburg. I think if we contribute in the right way, we can beat anyone on our day. We’ve qualified and we didn’t concede any goals. “We can’t be happy with how we played and we can’t blame anyone”.
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The first goal arrived when Mesut Ozil produced a sublime pass to set Aaron Ramsey away.
