It was a cold and rainy night in the city by the bay. The sort of night to test the calibre of Arsenal\u2019s young guns who arrived in Piraeus on the back of an 8 match unbeaten run in cup and league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the match Mikel Arteta had talked of his belief that our younger players would not hide in the face of a hostile Attic crowd. True to his word he started Saka, Martinelli, Guendouzi and Willock but slightly surprisingly preferred Leno to Emi in goal – the German\u2019s greater experience required for a tricky away night perhaps. Sokratis came in at right back in preference to Maitland-Niles and as expected, Joe Willock replaced Mesut \u00d6zil, who had remained in London to be with his wife at the upcoming birth of their first child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On our last trip to Greece in December 2015 we had come away with a 3-0 win courtesy of a Giroud hat-trick. However, lest we read too much into that result a touch over four years later, with Hector and \u00d6zil rested and Chambers injured not a single member of the 18 man Arsenal squad that won well that night was still playing for the club. In the past Olympiakos have tested the best at home and beaten the likes of Real Madrid, Juventus, Athletico, Liverpool and the mighty Arsenal \u2013 we could expect a stern examination of our new-found defensive credentials particularly in the opening quarter of the game. Could we rise to the challenge or would we come a cropolis?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nfirst 5 minutes were not reassuring as two very decent chances came and went\nfor Olympiakos, the first well saved by Leno and the second nodded over from\nclose range. Sokratis and Saka were given early problems out wide and we\nstruggled initially to cope with the snap and speed of movement from the home\nside. On the right particularly we looked vulnerable as Auba was offering\nprecious little defensive support to an out of position Sokratis. We rode our\nluck, a touch fortuitously at times, but slowly, with Guendouzi and Willock\nworking hard and the Mustafi \/ Luiz partnership looking more secure in the\ncentre, we grew into the game. The first booking came and went for a sly little\nstamp on Guendouzi\u2019s foot by El Arabi and then finally on 20 minutes we\nfashioned a decent chance for Lacazette to put wide from 6 or 7 yards out.\nShould have scored to be honest. From then on however we started to get on top\nand the closest Olympiakos came during the rest of the first half was an\ninterception by Luiz (or possibly Guendouzi!) that nearly caught out Leno. For\nThe Arsenal a Xhaka free kick deflected off Martinelli forced the Olympiakos\nkeeper into action, a few other half chances were missed but we struggled for\nfluency going forward. Half-time was reached and we could be satisfied with\nhaving curbed the early fire from Olympiakos but needed to create more going\nforward with Laca not looking to have gained much confidence from his goal\nagainst Newcastle, and Martinelli quiet. Could we get a precious away goal in\nthe 2nd<\/sup> half?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nwere no changes at half time for The Arsenal as the 2nd<\/sup> half kicked\noff. The pattern set in the opening 45 minutes continued with both sides unable\nto create any chance of note in the first 15 minutes. The first change came close\nto the hour with the arrival of Ceballos for Martinelli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Olympiakos came more into the game after that, gaining a frustrating series of free-kicks and corners as The Gunners still lacked coherence in the transitional moments to put it in coach speak. Or passed poorly to put it another way. A hopeful appeal from Lacazette for a penalty that never looked like being given, then a decent save by Leno from a header that turned out to be offside and we were already in the final quarter. Pepe came on for Willock, who had had several bright moments on a tough night, and the match meandered on until suddenly on 80 minutes we lit up the Attic night with a cracking goal to delight the traveling faithful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One\nnil to The Arsenal <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A long ball out wide left from Mustafi was acrobatically kept in by Auba and then slipped inside to Saka on the overlap. Saka controlled well and played a beautifully weighted cross for Lacazette to slide in from close home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nall honesty we could have scored twice more after that, though it would have\nnot reflected what was mostly a tight game. Lacazette had a chance well saved\nsoon after scoring and a Sokratis header from a Ceballos corner bounced off the\nbar with the keeper just beaten. We saw the game out with minimal fuss and much\nblatant time-wasting, a job done and a valuable advantage to take back to The\nEmirates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All in all not a game that will live long in the memory but one they may actually be important for defensive confidence \u2013 a third consecutive clean sheet that the opening 5 minutes aside was built on solid, disciplined performances from Leno, Sokratis, Mustafi, Luiz and Saka and much unfashionable hard work Guendouzi and Xhaka. It\u2019s been a rare pleasure to write solid and disciplined about an Arsenal defence! If I feel that just watching then how must the players feel to be playing in one? The times they are a-changin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\ngood result and onward to the Everton game we go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a cold and rainy night in the city by the bay. The sort of night to test the calibre of Arsenal\u2019s young guns who arrived in Piraeus on the back of an 8 match unbeaten run in cup and league. Before the match Mikel Arteta had talked of his belief that our younger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}