Arsenal have lost both their opening Champions League games in Group F so far and face a hard task if they are to progress to the next round for a 17th consecutive season. The Olympiacos goalkeeper should perhaps have done better but Ospina’s howler proved the final talking point of an entertaining half.
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The Frenchman is said to have refrained from singling out individuals but, nevertheless, made it known in no uncertain terms that he expects to see greater desire, intensity and consistency from his charges.
The Gunners’ next two games in the Champions League are against Bayern Munich, and Zenden believes that there’s no realistic chance that they will progress to the latter stages of the competition. Their failure to win the Olympiakos game though leaves Arsenal’s hopes of qualification from the group hanging by a thread. “This is why I rotate as we play many games”, he said.
Amazingly, Wenger’s players were supposedly surprised at the tone of his criticism, despite the hapless nature of Tuesday’s defeat.
Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker pointed the finger at his teammates for failing to carry out their defensive duties in the immediate aftermath of Sanchez’s equaliser.
Arsene Wenger’s side are struggling to make it out of the group stage in Europe but sit fourth in the Premier League, three points behind United, and can go top if they win on Sunday. “It happened to Petr Cech already this season [against West Ham]”. We lost a goal at Zagreb and two goals against Olympiacos to set pieces.
‘We can not select the team by making a poll before the game and getting everybody’s opinion’. You are capable to judge it and I leave you to do that.
“It was a complicated night [against Olympiakos]”, he told Arsenal’s official website.
Finnbogason said: “The first corner is something we practise on the training pitch because we know they have no man on the edge of the box”.
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FastOneTwo.com team manager Harry Robertson assesses the situation at Arsenal and says the players will waste unnecessary mental energy way too early this season. The moment when the goalkeeper dropped Kostas Fortounis’s in swinging corner over his line to put Olympiakos 2-1 up at the Emirates Stadium will haunt him.
