Arsenal avoided the embarrassment of dropping into the second tier Europa League thanks to striker Olivier Giroud, who scored his first hat-trick for the club on Wednesday.
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“In the last three weeks we lost Francis Coquelin, Santi Cazorla and Alexis Sanchez”. “We made it so hard for ourselves, no-one really gave us any chance but the attitude in that dressing room was fantastic”.
Petr Cech then showed just why Wenger was so keen to sign him in the summer as he pushed away a curling Kostas Fortounis shot with the hosts looking for the one goal they needed to advance at Arsenal’s expense.
The kind of performance we produced in a very heated atmosphere was ideal – on the mental front and the tactical side as well. Hopefully if we can get players back fit as well, the squad will be even stronger than it is now.
Arsenal have now advanced from the group stages of the Champions League for 16 consecutive seasons.
Giroud’s 67th-minute penalty meant Arsenal could breathe easy as it meant Olympiakos needed three goals before the end to pip them to second place behind group winners Bayern Munich. We knew we had to push for the third goal because it’s very risky at 2-0, and we had the ideal game.
Arsenal striker Giroud said: “Of course, we believe we can make it! If we get the likes of Wolfsburg it will be a completely different ball game because they had a great result against Manchester United”.
Having been eliminated by Monaco last season, Arsenal’s reputation as serial chokers in the knock-out stages has become a burden which qualification enables them to overcome.
A 1-0 win would not have been enough for Arsenal to overturn the 3-2 home loss to Olympiacos in a head-to-head tiebreaker, and Giroud’s second goal of the night was set up brilliantly by Joel Campbell.
After a somewhat cagey start, Arsenal controlled much of the rest of the game at their pace, picking off Olympiacos at the right times. Whoever we get in the draw, we will be confident, raring to go and I’m sure we will get players fit as well. Number two was Walcott and No 3 was Ramsey, so we respected the order.
“We are not lucky in the Premier League”, Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, told BT Sport. However, they now know they have the tools to respond and come out the other side no worse for wear.
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Roared on by the vociferous home support, Olympiacos had made the brighter start and the first serious effort on goal arrived in the 20th minute when Seba fired narrowly off target from the edge of the box.
