“I think we missed a lot of players but this year [with] the new squad and [in] the years before, there has been quality”, the Frenchman told Arsenal’s official site.
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Arsenal make the trip to struggling Aston Villa at Villa Park in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon. The cauldron of noise fell dramatically in shock from the home support, save for the 1200 Arsenal fans who were now screaming in delight and sensing last 16 dreamland.
“We knew what we had to do, we knew we had to score more than two goals, but we always felt that if we kept a clean sheet then we would win”.
The draw for the second round of the Champions League takes place on Monday, where Arsenal could face one of Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, Wolfsburg or Zenit St. Petersburg.
He collected a flawless through ball from Ivan Rakitic and rounded the goalkeeper to score in the 20th.
Bayer Leverkusen’s Javier Hernandez and Julian Brandt after the match.
“We started strongly, we tried to create chances”, he said.
France striker Olivier Giroud scored a hat-trick because the English Premier League (EPL) giants hammered Olympiakos 3-0 of their second leg conflict right here on Wednesday to make it out of Group E. He closed the scoring by converting a penalty kick in the 67th.
Arsenal treble hero Giroud summed up his team’s performance after the win.
In-form Hernandez netted his 12th goal in 11 games just three minutes after Lionel Messi had given a weakened Barca side the lead after 20 minutes. At 2-0 we had to push for a third goal, it was too risky to stay at 2-0.
A lovely through ball by Eden Hazard released Diego Costa and when his shot was saved, the rebound hit the unfortunate Ivan Marcano and rebounded into the goal. It is quite the run of form from a player who could quite reasonably have expected to leave the club in the summer, on loan or otherwise.
The Ukrainian side finished second behind Chelsea in Grooup D thanks to Denys Garmash, who pounced on the rebound when Serhiy Rybalka’s deflected free-kick was stopped by Predrag Rajkovic. He won numerous headers throughout the game and he was obviously the key player in the Arsenal win.
Dynamo will also have to hold the home leg of its first knockout round tie behind closed doors.
Going into the game having lost three of their opening four Group F fixtures, Wenger’s side needed to win by two goals or more at the Karaiskakis Stadium or better the 3-2 defeat they suffered at home to the Greek champions in September.
Even a defeat would have been enough for Gent because Lyon went to Valencia and beat the hosts 2-0. Number two was Walcott and No 3 was Ramsey, so we respected the order.
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“I’m sure none of them [teams who topped their group] would like to play us after that result. No group is easy and lack of focus can be punished”.
