Olympiacos 0-3 Arsenal: the French kiss

I have a strange emotional state before games: I rarely hope for the best or dread the worst. On Twitter, maybe. Sometimes (even quite often) you can see me putting on a brave face, while expressing full confidence the Gunners can do the job, whatever the difficulty of it. Occasionally you can see me moaning we will fall (though this is a much less frequent occurrence).

However in real life, I mostly take games in their stride. You won’t see me predicting a heavy loss or a resounding win, whatever the opposition. I rarely write us off, disregarding our form and/or players available (we are Arsenal, after all), but I also rarely say things like “It’s only QPR for Christ’s sake, what can go wrong?”

It’s when the game kicks off that my nerves kick in proper and my mood starts swinging from one end of spectrum to the other, which may not necessarily be related to what’s happening on the pitch. It’s when the whistle for the kick-off blows that I start hoping for the best/dreading the worst.

Is it to do with my rationality? I like to think of myself as a rational man, prematurely celebrating success or predicting gloom is not the sign of being rational. SImply because until the game starts you rarely have reasons to think your team will run out winners or will be consigned to the history books.

Or maybe such a state of mine is dependent on a kind of nervous stupor I enter once the line-ups are revealed? I just don’t have the time or energy to make predictions of any sort, because I’m too busy worrying myself into this senseless condition.

Whatever reason it is, the fact remains: I am never full of confidence one way or the other prior to kick-off. And I don’t spend days on end worrying about the upcoming game. Maybe, just maybe, that means I still can enjoy football where Arsenal is involved and the unpredictability of the game precludes me on some deep psychological level from making predictions of any kind.

Why am I saying all this? Simple: it was exactly how I felt on Wednesday. And on Saturday, before Sunderland. This is how I will feel when I sit down to watch us take on City in 10-days time (unfortunately, I’ll miss our trip to Birmingham this weekend). Sure, every week I speculate on our form, players’ availability and possible scenarios of how the game will unfold (and I’m usually decent at guessing), however you are unlikely to see me saying things like the end result with certainty.

So when I sat down on Wednesday to watch the game I kind of...succumbed to the inevitability of what was about to unfold.

After watching the opening 20 minutes or so I started to get desperate. Not much was happening on the pitch, we didn't try to take Olympiacos by storm and the commentator kept nagging on how this “was all part of Marco Silva’s grand plan” and “how such a game suited him down to the ground”.

But then, on the 25th minute we sparked into life. Joel Campbell, who minutes before switched flanks with Theo Walcott, stormed down the right flank, put in a low cross and Flamini’s deflected shot rattled the bar. Giroud headed the ball into the keeper's arms from the resulting corner and this was when I understood: the game was on. We were in it.

4 minutes later we went ahead. Ozil, after seemingly being pushed away from the box, turned on the spot and sliced Olympiacos’ defense open with one deft stroke of his left foot. Ramsey ran onto the German's through pass and weighed in a cross for Olivier Giroud. The Frenchman met it with a thumping header, which Roberto couldn't save despite his best efforts.

But it was only the beginning of the Frenchman's heroics. Four minutes after the restart Campbell twinkle-toed his way past 3 Olympiacos defenders after latching onto Ozil’s pass and laid the ball on a platter for Giroud. Ollie timed his run between 3 (!) defenders in such a way that he found himself one-on-one with Roberto, with loads of defenders in the box rendered absolutely useless and our reinforcements out of the equation. The Frenchman, who moments before barely got up after seemingly doing his ankle in, didn't miss.

However Ollie didn’t stop there. On the 66th minute he burst into the box, his cutback found Nacho Monreal in a good shooting position, the Spaniard took a shot, Elabdellaoui blocked the shot with his arm and Rizzoli pointed to the spot. Even before the cameraman showed who the penalty taker would be, I’ve heard “Na na Giroud” emanating from the away sector and knew the Frenchman was onto his hat-trick. Ollie stepped up, ignored Roberto’s antics and calmly sent the keeper the other way for his first hat-trick in an Arsenal shirt. 3-0 and game over. Olympiacos didn’t even look bothered going forward and we could have extended our lead further, only for Giroud to be flagged offside and Ozil forcing a fine save from Roberto.

Now, even after such a performance I’ve seen people say it wasn’t Giroud’s best game in our shirt or that, indeed, the Frenchman hasn’t done anything special. I strongly with both points. I’m not at all inclined to find fault with Ollie’s hat-trick, especially at a time when even the English media acknowledged his achievement. For several reasons:

1. A hat-trick is a hat-trick. You don’t score these all that often and if people find it okay to wank over Benzema’s hat-trick against Malme in a game which means nothing for both sides, I reserve my right to be over the moon with Giroud after he delivered at such a crucial time
2. Giroud showed different aspects to his game. A good sense of positioning for the first and a powerful header, strong hold-up play and a perfectly-timed run for the second and nerves of steel for the penalty. Yes, he wouldn’t have scored his goals without Ramsey, Ozil, Campbell, Monreal etc., but that’s a team game. The same can be said about almost every goal
3. Finally, I simply love Ollie Giroud. For his resolve, for his spirit, for his love for the shirt. I have defended Olivier Giroud long enough and fiercely enough to allow myself not to do this when such a performance comes along

One last thing I’ll do before wrapping up: honorable mentions. First up is Joel Campbell, who once again worked tirelessly for the team, created moments of danger and his assist was nothing short of sublime.

Second up is Ozil, who left the field without an assist or a goal to his name (I believe it’s the first time he’s done that in ten games), but set-up both Ramsey and then Campbell so that they could, in their turn, set up Giroud. The German was a little less noticeable, but that doesn’t diminish his contribution in the slightest.

Finally, Petr Cech. He made at least one crucial save from Fortunis at 2-0. Also, he stood firm in a couple of other potentially dangerous situations, so big thumbs up to our keeper. Finally, his response to a stupid question post-game was nothing short of classy.

I’ll leave it at this. Back with the usual preview for the Aston Villa game.

Up the Arsenal

Olympiacos preview: do or die

If you have ever played the original Uncharted game (run to the store asap if you haven’t), then you know there are five difficulty settings there: very easy, easy, normal, hard and crushing. The first three correspond to their respective names. On hard things get much trickier and I think there would have been few complaints if “hard” was the toughest setting.

But it isn’t. However to unlock “crushing” you have to first complete the game on “hard”. This is a perfectly understandable requirement, as not even hard can prepare you sufficiently for what comes next.

Being a game geek (at the time), I wanted to complete the game on crushing, however, even the opening scenes (where you are explained the basic controls) proved tough to get through. Once I did, once the tutorial was over, the shit really hit the fan. I was repeatedly slaughtered by simple mercenaries in the early chapters (the game is divided in 22 chapters) and my progress halted. I had to come up with ways at putting myself into minimal danger (i.e. sticking to cover during shoot-outs as much as possible), while also maximising the output (still killing my enemies).

You know what I did? Devised a plan which allowed me to be pretty accurate with my shooting by blind-firing out of cover. I noticed that Drake shoots roughly in the centre of the screen without aiming, so I marked the centre of the screen and placed a sticker exactly above it, dead-in-the-middle. Voilà.

I brought the whole thing up in regards to our Olympiacos game. We seem to be approaching this game on hard, only to find out the game itself will be played on crushing. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

In our case “crushing” means pretty much the same it did to be: we have to get to the our destination point (a win by two goals or more) operating within the limitations of a strictly defined system (very few players we can change around) all the while being constantly aware any lapse of concentration can prove costly indeed (i.e. conceding a goal). But, like was the case with completing Drake's Fortune on crushing, it is doable.

Squad and approach

I’ve skipped the usual “team news” section because there is nothing new to report about. We don’t have any new injuries, no one is coming back, so there you have it.

I also don’t see a lot of sense in the “head-to-head” section, because our record away in Greece, while appaling, is more down to Arsenal qualifying already by that point and playing a bunch of kids/second-string players as a consequence. Moving on.

How we approach the game is a slightly more interesting question. I say “slightly” because Arsene basically laid down what we will do in the presser:

“There is one positive thing for us - we know exactly what we have to do. We know that we have to go for it from the start. So let's do that and hopefully we can get through. We know what is expected and we have studied Olympiacos”.

While one can make a case that we have a squad more suited to counter-attacking football right now, it seems Wenger won’t play the waiting game. Whether that’s because it’s hard to pick off your opponent twice (at least) inside one game, handing someone the initiative is dangerous or because we may not have the resilience to withstand pressure without Coquelin (or, indeed, all of the above), is not that important. We are unlikely to go this way on Wednesday.

However, will Olympiacos accept it? From what I’ve heard, they are a side full of attacking-minded players. They may not be willing to hand over the initiative and shut shop. All of this may lead to a fascinating (to a casual observer) battle for the ball in the opening minutes.

However, I’m more than sure the Greeks will plough for the more conservative variant. There are two reasons for them to do that:

1. We aren’t always very good at picking locks. The chances of us scoring twice against a side that sits deep are well below scoring twice in an end-to-end contest.
2. We seem to be susceptible to counters recently. Even Sunderland made use of it. I’m sure Olympiacos’ players and manager studied us just as we studied them.

It is something Mesut Ozil is aware of and warns against:

“Olympiacos can play good football and we saw that at the Emirates. They want to play on the counter-attack but we can’t concede goals like we did before again”.

If we assume it’s going to be another game where we have to unlock a defense and avoid conceding on a counter, there is at least one change the manager may consider making: Gabriel for Mertesacker.

I know I’ve been harping about how the Brazilian should start games for a while now (though I’m not alone here), but I didn’t like one bit how we were left exposed vs Sunderland when Koscielny pushed up. The most notable moment happened in the 3rd minute, when Borini raced through on goal because Kos got tangled up in a duel up front. Anam studies Koscielny’s (and Ramsey’s) risk/reward system of play in-depth here.

If we assume Koscielny has become our Coquelin (for the time being) then pairing him up with someone pacy only makes sense. This way Mert’s lack of pace won’t be exposed and he won’t be asked to cover for both himself and Kos, something he naturally can’t do, especially if we are talking counter-attacks.

Another change I’d propose is Theo for Giroud. The Frenchman has been carrying a heavy burden ever since Theo sustained an injury, which only was made heavier when Alexis limped off against Norwich. The Frenchman has started 7 games in this period (9 in a row if we count in Everton and Sheffield) and has only been subbed off twice if I recall correctly: against Zagreb and this past weekend against Sunderland.

As someone concisely summed it up, Giroud is becoming negative as a result of being overplayed. In the past couple of games we’ve seen the effects of this: Ollie seemed more interested in arguing with the ref and lying on the ground than in scoring goals and creating chances for others. He clearly needs a break.

Will we also see Chambers in place of Flamini? Rumours keep circulating we just might. As far as I know Calum continues to be educated in this mould on the training ground, he completed at least one U21s game in midfield (and Gatting was full of praise for the Englishman) and, finally, we do know Wenger talked him up for that role. Guess we’ll see soon enough.

Predicted line-up: Cech - Bellerin - Mertesacker - Koscielny - Monreal - Flamini - Ramsey - Ozil - Oxlade - Campbell - Walcott

The verdict

While our chances are pretty slim, I remain optimistic (surprising, I know). We are not in the uncharted territory. It’s not the first time we have to win by several goals to go through. Yes, we haven’t done it before, but then we never needed to win by two goals, the margin was always bigger. We’ve won by two goals in the return leg at least twice in recent history (Bayern, Monaco) and even by three goals (Milan).

Olympiacos is not as good as Bayern, with all due respect, otherwise they wouldn’t have lost both legs by a shedload of goals. And I highly doubt they are as good defensive-wise as Monaco. Which means that our chance, while slim, remains very real.

So come on you Gunners.