You could hardly have called Arsenal first two group matches being lucky, with the unbelievable defeats to Zagreb and Olympiakos, and Arsene Wenger acknowledged that things didn’t go our way, but also opined that his team usually qualified anyway.
Well that came through in style last night with Olivier Giroud’s amazing first ever hat-trick as we overcame all the odds and smashed Olympiakos in Athens to get our name in Monday morning’s draw for the knockout stages. In this form, and maybe with a little bit of luck, this could perhaps be Arsenal’s year, in the Champions League as well as the Premier League.
Wenger admitted that he hadn’t even bothered thinking about who we could get in the next round. He said: “We’ll see. At the moment I haven’t even looked at who we could get. We were so nearly out that I put all my focus into staying in this competition. The kind of performance tonight, in a very heated atmosphere, showed that we have great character. These games make the team stronger and this one certainly will.
“It is a fantastic achievement for us. When you look at who we’ve lost in the last three weeks, we’ve lost Coquelin, Cazorla and Alexis among other long-term injuries, not many people gave us a chance. We are a real team. In the dressing room this team is very close and you could see that again today.
“….It will make us stronger and strengthen the belief of the squad. It is a special night for us because, as we said before the game, we were in escape mode. We needed something special and when you deliver something special it can create positive memories for the rest of the season. Maybe it’s a lucky year for us in the Champions League, you never know.”
We will look into who we can draw later but there wont be much choice! We can’t draw Bayern or Chelsea or Man City, but we are most likely to draw one f the top three Spanish sides. But as Wenger says, it doesn’t matter who you draw at this stage of the competition, you just have to play your best and hope the luck falls your way….
Onwards and Upwards!
Right now the only weak link in
this team is BFG…when will he
dropped to benched…everybody
knows that he is too slow and
everyone exploit that in every
single game…but still he keeps
on starting the game…i never
feel secure with him especially
when we are attacking and play
high line…
If I was gabriel I would be
fuming from inside…cause
gabriel is so much better than
him but still BFG starts while
gabriel always start from the
bench…
We have enough warnings by
now,surely we are not waiting for
a Monoco like game…and then
start blaming him…
Gabriel has to start,the guy got
lot to offer…his mentality his
attitude his passion,fire in the
belly this guy has to start…and
he also can be the leader that
this team so badly crying for
years now…
Gabriel can be the last piece in
our puzzle
Well thank God you aint Gabriel..he’s not complaining or moaning,he’s training and always focused cus he know he’ll get his chances,and the few time he got the chances he did well because he’s focused unlike Debuchy who us fuming and moaning instead of stepping up higher than Bellerin he’s not focused. Debuchy from me to you bye bye if you wanna go, tired of seeing his comments on net,we need committed and focused players. Campbell is a good example, he wasnt told he’ll replace OX directly but because he’s focused on delivering when the time comes he now has the spot. Personally OX should kiss his first team chances goodbye, i don’t really care if you agree or not but Campbell in a few games has done half of what Ox has done for us over the years.
Gibbs?? am not impressed with him, how come nobody has made findings bout him? this dude has been with us over 5 good years but no improvement,he’s stll the same Gibbs of last three season,last two and last season, get the ball run full speed and give the ball away while trying to dribble and then run back. There’s honestly no improvement from this guy..
I believe he should’ve gone far but he hasn’t.
And please keep your advice of fuming and moaning to our players in your backpack. We don’t need characters like that.
This is the problem…it seems like u don’t have any knowledge of our team and players…
Bellerin and debuchy is different thing because at this point bellerin is better than debuchy…so debuchy crying and moaning is not valid…
But when it comes to BFG and Gabriel…Gabriel is better than Mertersecker…So that’s why its not understandable…
And it seems like that you prefer BFG in CD rather than Gabriel…So just wait and watch…
I bet when we have a game like monaco again and our BFG and its lack of pace gets exposed…you will be the first one to crying and moaning about it but you know what, it not gonna do us any good…
Kos is the reason who is saving BFG by now…otherwise u pair him with anyone and resuls will be drastic to say the least…
Gabriel and Kos should be our cb pairing
Unfortunately football isn’t just a about pace, mertesacker can be a liability sometimes but the guy is good at using his head (reading the game!) and dnt get me wrong I love Gabriel and would love to see him start but be careful cz when you watch that olympiacos game you’ll see mertesacker screaming at Ramsey and flamini to hold their position when we were two nil up. Without mertesacker those guys would’ve been lost and we’d probs have conceded. Now that’s leadership right there, Gabriel will get his chances but right now mertesacker is playing well no reason to change
Hello my fellow Gooners! This is off topic, But I’m trying to get myself some tickets to watch arsenal play. how the bloomin’ heck do you do it? Is there a good site? I live not too far from birmingham, so I’ve been trying to find tickets for the villa game this weekend. any idea’s?
Christmas tidings and much love to you all.
Giroud is the man of the moment and non of u so called fans commenting are interested in praising him lyk he deserves, but let arsenal lose or draw nd Giroud wld be treated lyk a defender nd goalkeeper combined with insults.. Hypocrites
I will be thumbing down every comment without a word of praise for GIROUD
Stop being bias fans on here.. Pls for once support Arsenal.. Always criticizing Giroud for everything..
Writing a thesis piece of rubbish must be very taxing I believe. Per is a very different player from Gabriel, and as long as he is fit Gabriel will not play. Gabriel is a Kos type of play, so they will rarely play together because they cannot complement each other. look at Man City right now with its aggressive CBs shipping goals for fun. Have you also forgotten that it was Gab’s momentary lapse in concentration that started the defeat at Bayern? Have you also forgotten it was Gab to blame for Norwich’s equalizer. Until he cuts out those little individual errors he will be second choice.
No maybes. Lets trash them all. – Need also reinforcements and Samurai Jack to do so.
The only reason I am more optimistic about this season is because of petr Cech.
Henceforth, we have to Take every of our Games Like its the Very Last……giving our all for all……… And the Truth is, it won’t be everyday we’d get to pull off a miracle win Like we did yesterday….let’s not rest on our oars……
To cap it off, i will quote the title of this article: and maybe this will be Arsenal’s Lucky year in the champions League
I really want us to draw Wolfsburg.
That being said, it will probably be either Barcelona, Barcelona or Barcelona considering our ‘luck’ in the L16 draws.
can that wait until monday?…….. Then it won’t matter whom we are drawn with…….. Sooner or later……we’d draw the likes of Barca, madrid or even bayern again…… What really matters is how prepared we would/should be when the time eventually comes!
After assessing the 9147 different combinations of teams that could be drawn on Monday, Fokus Fussball have determined that, with a probability of 22.97%, Arsenal are most likely to come up against Zenit in the next round.
But even though this is apparently the most likely match-up in the competition, we all know that the Gunners will get Barcelona, don’t we?
Copied and pasted from Metro ?
Thanks to Metro! ??
To be honest, it doesn’t matter who we draw. Remember last years ‘easy’ draw against Monaco?
That being said, I really do hope we don’t draw Barcelona or Real anyways. So let’s not get our CL hopes up again because the next CL match is in 2 months. Meanwhile we have to stay consistent for our main target; the Premier League. Starting with annihilating Aston Villa!
Prem league is the priority it has to be , Any news on sanchez I mean official news goodness every player in the world gets injured and you read within 2/3 days ” so n so out for x amount of weeks etc” it’s been 2 weeks nearly typical Arsenal.
physioroom.com
.
With a slight certainty for the citeh game….
@Mo1
Trying our best to stay consistent, should be our main priority. We must go for the lot…
i think we are due a kind draw,don,t you??
@tissiam
It shouldn’t matter who we draw. Because sooner or later we’re going to have to come up against the Reals and Barcas of this competition, and we should be ready and able to take it to em…
Thats how we show em we’re a real team…
OH Look there is a low flying Pig. Not going to happen with the present Arsenal Team under Wenger.
I have to say the players earned their pa last night. Campbell put in a mega shift as did Ozil. Gerioud put himself about, the whole team were courageous which was good to see and answered a lot of critics including myself at times. To progress further in the champions league is going to be extremely hard. We thought we had a favourable draw last year when we got Monaco but look what happened, Wenger made a mess of it. Just let see what Monday brings.