It’s a long time since I’ve seen a team as negative as Olympiacos were last night. In the 6th minute Arsenal had possession just inside our own half, every single Olympiacos player was behind the ball. Pathetic.
I figure as Zico has only recently taken over as manager he doesn’t know the players too well so his plan was to try and stop us playing. We’ve seen plenty of teams to the Grove and ‘park the bus’, as they say. Many of them do it effectively, preventing us from creating chances and frustrating fans and players alike but the Greeks weren’t good enough to do that.
We played 5-a-side football last night. Lots of short passing and movement which provided us with plenty of goal scoring opportunities, especially in the first half. Their keeper, Aristotle, made some good saves although it has to be said despite creating the chances our finishing was a bit less than emphatic. The closest we came was a Cesc Fabregas volley which crashed back off the crossbar, while the keeper made saves from Arshavin, Cesc and Robin van Persie at various stages.
The second was more of the same. Arsenal dominated possession, the Greeks pushed so far back into their own half that all they could do was hoof it back upfield and give it straight back to us. There were a couple of hairy moments defensively but eventually the goal had to come. Just moments after his introduction Eduardo was fed the ball in the box by Cesc, the timing of his run was perfect giving him the space to cross for Robin van Persie who slammed it home from close range.
The second came from Andrei Arshavin and although he was more than a bit offside when he scored it the build-up play to create the chance was sumptuous. Nice interplay between the Russian and Cesc, Ramsey played it back to the captain who fizzed it across goal and Arshavin’s backheeled finish was sublime. Offside, yes, but no less than we deserved. Forget Zico’s bizarre post-match comments about the officials being French, classic deflection tactics to take the focus away from just how bad his team were. And they were bad.
Conversely Arsenal were very good last night. I always thought we’d get the goals although I was just beginning to get a bit anxious before RVP’s opener. That said I think everyone knew we’d score. Sometimes you can hear the tension quite clearly as we fail to take chances at home but the crowd were right behind the team and I think that helped.
It was good to see Cesc back to his normal self. He bossed the game and was involved in almost everything good we did. Tomas Rosicky‘s rehabilitation continues and he showed the kind of craft and endeavour that our midfield has been missing at times, while Alex Song mopped up everything that needed to be mopped up. There’s no doubt van Persie deserved his goal, his all-round play and movement were fantastic, Arshavin looked sharp and fitter than he has been and in general it was the kind of performance we were looking for. Sometimes it’s easy to get dragged down to the level of your opponents but we played well for the whole 90 and it was good to see.
I think we dominated from the first to the last minute. What I liked in our performance tonight was that we always played with a desire to keep the discipline in the team because that is very satisfying. We did not do anything crazy. We have matured and a game like that shows it.
After a late evening game against Fulham on Saturday, which really was a hard fought three points, it was good to see the team do it for the whole game. There was no first half hangover, no late lapse in concentration. Of course some of it is down to Olympiacos being as poor a team as we’ve played in the Champions League for years but I’d rather talk us up than them down.
I think the key is that the big players performed. Defensively we were solid again but Cesc, Arshavin, Rosicky, van Persie and co all played well. Keeping them fit is going to be the key to winning things this season. With Walcott and Nasri still to return there’s still something to be added too, so fingers crossed.
Speaking of Theo he played for an hour yesterday in a game against Olympiacos reserves. We won 3-1, he wasn’t on the scoresheet but hopefully that 60 minutes is enough for him to push for a place in the squad for Sunday’s game against Blackburn.
So all in all a good night’s work for the Gunners, onwards and upwards. Till tomorrow.
