Olympiacos vs Arsenal [Champions League Death Match]

Olympiakos Vs Arsenal
9th Dec 19:45BST
Karaiskakis Stadium


Probably our biggest CL group stage match in years. Can't remember Round 6 ever being important for us to win. And not only win, but win convincingly. It's not set in stone we will win there at all honestly. We might be a better team, but we have a pretty awful record away to Olympiacos. Granted we never actually needed to win there in the past, but with our recent performances it's difficult to see us winning by a 2 goal margin.

But it's not impossible. I mean it's not barcelona away or something. We can win there if we play properly. Defence needs to be more important than attack. Olympiacos will try to defend and counter, the usual method to beat us. But with Walcott and Oxlade, we'll have counter attack threat of our own. Not to mention Joel's recent good form and the return of Ramsey. We have goals in the team and flair and creativity. It just depends on which Arsenal shows up. If we combine our strengths and play with confidence, then no way we can't win at least 3-0. But as said before, it will be a difficult task.


Arsenal Team

------------------------------Cech------------------------------------
Bellerin---------Koscielny----------Mertesacker-------------Monreal
----------------Flamini-----------Ramsey-----------------------------
Joel------------------------Ozil------------------------------Oxlade
-------------------------Giroud--------------------------------------

Hopefully Theo starts. Giroud is good coming off the bench

We need to pretend that it's a two-legged game and that we're 3-1 down on aggregate. Though knowing us, we'll probably score one eventually, but struggle to get the second for the rest of the game and end up bowing out heroically.

Olympiacos' approach to the game will be really interesting. Since they need a point to ensure qualification, I wonder if they'll park it at home, or if they'll try and get a goal to make it harder for us to qualify. From our perspective, we need to find the right balance of going for the goals we need and also not letting any in. Having said that, 4-3 to us would be enough to get us through.

Can't do anything more than give our best on the night and see what happens, in any case. I hope Walcott starts over Chamberlain, but I've a strong feeling we'll be unchanged from the weekend.

From our perspective it's interesting how we approach the game.

Do we go all attack from the beginning or do we start cautiously in defence and work our way to the goals needed in the 2nd half?

Both versions have their risks of course, could go all attack with no attacking option on the bench and concede due to recklessness or could go cautiously and unable to penetrate the Olympiakos defence for 90 mins.

The worst option would be starting cautiously passing the ball with Theo Walcott coming on at 65-70 min only after Olympiakos have already prepared to defend with all they have. The best maybe would be Theo starting centrally with Giroud coming on later to provide a late boost as he usually does.

Of course there's the all out attack Joel-Giroud-Theo, but in that case we need the goals really quickly otherwise we're *bleep* with no real attacking options from the bench in case it's needed.

Doesn't 3-2 send us through
all out attack
with all Goal threats starting

With all goals we have gifted opponents about time something goes our way!

We Got this
COYG

Yeah. Think 3-2 would be enough.

Teams:

Cech; Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal; Flamini, Ramsey; Walcott, Ozil, Campbell; Giroud

Chamberlain and Iwobi the only attackers on the bench.

LADSSSSSSSSSSS

Not very happy with Bellerin atm - looks like he needs a break.

Decent performance in the first half.

Just a bit worried we won't be able to score again. And if we concede (which is pretty likely), I have no faith in us scoring twice.

We know we'll go out being one goal short anyway.

need to score 3 at all cost. no way we are keeping a clean sheet

3? BS. We ain't scoring so many.

Eating that certain pie, also the most gorgeous lamp post ever.

RG and sri banter jinx I see

Twoism wrote:RG and sri banter jinx I see

Gtfi

Never in doubt. Shame on all you non-believers.

Brilliant performance tonight, when we really needed it. Now we get to enjoy going out the last 16 of the Champions League again.

This was a Vince Russo style swerve. Everyone expected us to win 2-1 and go out on that one vital goal like always, but BAM we flipped the script and actually did what we had to do to qualify

Absolutely NO-ONE saw that coming

Always knew we will go through lol


great efficient performance. No complaints


So good to have Ramsey back. Our passing and control is 10000x better with him.

I'm officially starting a Campbell > Ox campaign. He's this year's Coquelin/Bellerin.

Everyone had good game but gotta say outside Giroud & Ozil, Campbell and Monreal were great going forward. Love that Campbell growing game by game.

Great performance
Respected the basics of the game rather than trying to force things through, kept our patience and got our reward

Joel and Giroud