More Arsenal mistakes but deserved victory all the same

Arsenal have earned an emphatic 3-1 victory in Greece to give them one foot in the next round of the competition, but Olympiacos goal will haunt us.

The Gunners started the game in top gear, piling forward in numbers and were putting our rivals under constant pressure.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang forced goalkeeper Sa into an amazing stop from close range, before Martin Odegaard also missed a clearcut opportunity to put our side ahead.

The game slowed down a little as we looked to take more time in the build-up, and after 34 minutes we had our lead.

It was some goal as well, Martin Odegaard picks up the ball just outside the box and gets it onto his left boot before blasting it home.

We were well deserving of taking a lead into the break, and it would have been tough to deal with if we hadn’t.

We came out in the second-half in control also, but with ‘Arsenal being Arsenal’ of late, we began to give the ball away in defence.

David Luiz gifts our rivals the ball inside our own penalty box, but luckily their forward puts it beyond the far post, but another costly error allows them to level.

Bernd Leno once again finds a pass to a midfielder (Ceballos not Xhaka this time around), but he is surrounded by Olympiacos players, and El-Arabi takes one touch away from the midfielder before shooting from distance, with all of our players out of position of course.

The team did pick themselves up after this however. The focus was returned, but we struggled for many clearcut chances in the mean time.

That was until we had some corners back-to-back, and Willian was given the ball from the short-corner while the players manoeuvred themselves into space, and the Brazilian midfielder found his international counterpart Gabriel who leaps high to head home.

The Greek side tried to open up and get back into the game, and five minutes later it was Arsenal who found the net again.

Substitute Mo Elneny picked up the ball in midfield, and while his opponents moved off him he steps up to shoot from long-range, and his curling shot moves away from the goalkeeper and into the net.

3-1 was very much a deserved scoreline for Arsenal on that performance, but these errors simply have to stop.

You can find lots of the key moments in our Arsenal Videos section including the goals.

Patrick