Arsenal WILL still go through to the Knockout Stages

Stop worrying, Arsenal will still qualify by Sam P

After last night’s performance gave us our third defeat in the four Champions League games so far, I am still pretty certain that we will win our two remaining games and qualify for our name to go into the hat for the next round.

In two weeks time, we have the Croatian Champions Zagreb, coming to the Emirates, even our reserve side could beat them lol! But the most important thing to happen that night will be Bayern Munich have to beat Olympiakos in Germany. With both those teams joint top on 9 points, Bayern will need at least a point to ensure there place in the next round. Mind you if it IS a draw, then they will BOTH go through, but surely if Bayern want to look stylish they will play like they did tonight and pummell them into submission.

As Per Mertesacker said: “We have to win both games and get at least two goals at Olympiacos. We’ve been through even more difficult periods before. It’s not over and that’s how we approach the situation now.”

If we get through in a fortnight with a win for us and a win for Bayern, then all we have to do is win in Greece by two clear goals to make sure we are ahead in the head-to-head stats. Sounds easy doesn’t it! Arsene Wenger made it clear that he thought we had “minimal” chances if we play like we did in Munich.

Wenger said: “There is still a chance to qualify. Olympiacos have to lose here, we have to beat Zagreb and then we will see when we play Olympiacos away. It’s a small chance but it is a real one. We have to realise with that kind of performance that we had today that our chances are minimal.”

I don’t think they are minimal at all. Okay we had a bad night at the office yesterday, but as always we will pick ourselves up and grind out a win against Tottenham and get ourselves a weeks rest to be fresh for the next 3-games in a week situation. And I am sure we will have our confidence back by then….

Sam

Tags Munich Olympiakos tottenham

34 Comments

    1. And then wait and see. This is football strange this do happens. One of them is how on the earth Chelsh!t won the champions league?? Undeserved but its real. #COYG

      1. I’ll tell you how. They got past the second round(I know that
        doesn’t sound familiar to us gooners), then past the quarters,
        then past the semis,and then beat bayern in the final.That’s how
        they won it.

          1. Been unlucky for close to 20 years? I dont think so. In that time we have only made the final once. Our so called invincibles were a joke in Europe themselves.

            We are only in to make up numbers, never convinced that we are capable of doing anything.

  1. I’m not convinced qualification is really in our best interest. Our thin injury ravaged squad is likely to crumble under the extra weight of the CL knockout stages.

    1. If we don’t get back Ramsey Walcott Oxy and have to have out the likes of Gibbs Campbell Mertisaker then it ain’t gonna happen, sorry but our backup is very week. If it don’t happen then we will Qualify for next year and Wo be tied if Wenger doesn’t get at least 3 top quality players in and a sort out with the weak ones. He defenatly needs a left back as Gibbs is not there,also Bellerin needs a back up and Wenger needs to get one Quick.All other positions are well covered but you can see from the Carling cup and Bayen games how weak we were. I have my doubts the Spurs game is gonna be 3points. CB

  2. Arsenal beats both of them and goes through. this team can do that. i dont think the team is under pressure because everybody has written us off.

    we lost to Zagreb as Giroud was sent off and to Olympiacos due to some misfortunes. If we cant beat these 2 team now, then we are not worthy going through to next round either.
    stay ++++

      1. at equal points it is head to head result that counts
        Arsenal can qualify beating Zagreb 1-0 (or any other result) then Olympiacos 2-0 (or 2 goals margin) Bayern has to beat Olympiacos at any result

  3. Qualification is now hard as We must win our remaining two games and hope Bayern defeats Olympiakos. So we need to win and also need a favour from Bayern. We can win our remaining games and we can also bottle it. The main game for mi will be the game against Olympiakos in Greece. A difficult ground and we need to beat them with at least a two goal margin…

    It is not over yet….We will fight until the end. Hoping our first two defeats in this yr champions league wont cost us. If we cant qualify, then lets just focus on the league totally. Playing on thursdays and weekend could aggravate more injuries to our thin squad.

    We now turn our attention to the derby game on Sunday……Hope to see Hector and Kos back in the team.

    We are yet to win a game with Debuchy and Gibbs in the starting line up…Please correct mi if am wrong….Arsenal All The Way!

  4. And i would take the armband from mertesacker and bench him asap. He is only tllk. No captain presence, not a good footy talent, not a leader, no anything at all. Same goes with santi, dont make him the captain of the team, give it to Cech, Kos, or F. Donkey, bec besides being so shamed so often by fans, he shows heart when it matters.

  5. I like the way Per produced the mathematics of it all when asked if Bayern had ended their champions leagues hopes. It was like he had previously expected to loose and had done the math in advance!!

    That’s the fighting spirit you old cart horse you. Or is it that he has a very quick mind to make up for his sssssssllllllllllloooooooooowwwwwwwwww legs?

    Forget the CL already. Ask yourselves what would we do anyway if by some miracle we managed to get into the last 16? I know I contradict myself with no fighting spirit but, come on let’s get real here shall we!?

    Perhaps that’s all Per was being after all?

    Let’s just see if we can cut it in the PL against a strong City, a Winning ugly Man U and a resurgent Kop under heir klopp.

  6. Let’s be honest for a minute. We have a very slim chance of making it through to knockout stages, but even if we do, we have an injury plagued squad that needs to beat teams like Barca, Madrid, Bayern etc. Realistically it’s not going to happen. I would rather we focus all our energy on the double. We have a seriously good chance of winning that.

  7. @ Yengooner, I was referring to games so far this season. Not just yesterdays game…..We are yet to win a game this season when they both start. #Just saying

  8. @ juhislihis, Head to Head is far more superior than goal difference in the champions league. We win our remaining games. We defeat Olympiakos by 2goals margin (2:0, 5:3, 10:8) and hope Bayern defeats Olympiakos by any cost…….

  9. We might still go through, yes,but my question is to do what?For the cash maybe?? coz I am 100% sure it is not to win it.Why do we insist on getting to the next round with a thread thin squad plagued by the usual injuries. So we qualify 2nd from the group, probably get Barca or Real Madrid, lose the first leg emphatically, win the second leg but still get eliminated, But ofcourse no one cares coz the money is already in(money which won’t be spent).

    So what exactly is the point of qualifying, For the money I suppose.The only reason why qualification will make sense is if the team will be adequately strengthened in January but you and I both know that is never going to happen coz helloooooo,Wenger is still in charge

    1. Hahaha.. My exact take on it… Get through to the knockout stages and then do what apart from more humiliations from the Top clubs.

  10. Will go through to the knockout stage? And then do what? When i look at it its becoming a joke now, we keep biting our nails sweating over getting out of the group stage. But when you look at it from the outside, what do we do once we get into the knockouts? More humiliations from the top teams.

    We have lost the direction and meaning of the CL. We are like a mid table club that wants to make the top 6, just getting top 6. Once you make that top 6 then what? Smh

  11. But remember things can always #CHANGE. I begin to wonder why about 80% of us (AFC FANs) have little or no hope?? Okay, let’s see one realistic +ve here. Every body believes that bayern is the team in the world at the moment. How do we fair against the world best??
    1. World best team 5-3 Arsenal.
    2. World best team (3points) Arsenal (3points) and well deserved for that matter.
    From the day 1 I lost all hope for arsenal I will quit watching football period #OptimisticRealistic #COYG

    1. We have made a bad habit of winning some meaningless games every season and then using them as reference points or to justify failure at the end of the season. The game we won against bayern 2-0 was really not important to them as it was for us.The place at the top of the group was never in doubt after we lost our first two games. The game that really mattered for both clubs was yesterday’s game and look how that turned out.Not long ago in the knock out stage,bayern beat us 3-1 at home and then we beat them 2-0 at their ground but crashed out.Amazingly, people still talk about that 2-0 win as an amazing feat when the truth is bayern would never have lost that game if it mattered.

      1. Couldn’t agree more. We need to do it every time the whistle blows to be no.1.

        That requires a strong bench with quality on it, players in their best positions, not having horrific injury pools season after season (showing up lack of quality depth) and a manager and other club employees who see they needs the best players and can find them (not talking king ransom buys either). Not to mention tactical competence and man management.

        Bayern and Pep beat us on both counts. That’s why they win and progress with ease to the last 16 and have reach the latter stages.

        Everyone is saying Bayern is the best team in Europe right now..well that’s a bit premature if you ask me. Barca, Real, Juventus and others still might have something to say in this matter!

  12. We will have to wait till the 24th to see if we have a chance, ideally need Bayern to smash Olympiacos, and we also need a win that evening to even consider qualification. I’m not surprised by last night’s result whether it be 1-0 or 5-1 we were always going to drop points with a lot of key players out injured.

  13. Sam P, what can you say other than to give words of encouragement to Arsenal. I too have done the same thing because we all love Arsenal. However, they say, it is not over until it’s all over. We don’t need a calculator to calculate the remaining Arsenal’s chances to qualify for the knockout stages of the Ucl, do we? We all know the possibilities. Arsenal qualifying for the Ucl knockouts is not quaranteed but dicy. Bayern Munich could conspired with Olympiakos to play a draw game that will effectively see us out of next stages. Or Olympiakos could genuinely fight a Trojans battle at the Allianz Arena to get a draw or even beat Bayern Munich. In that case what can we do? Nonetheless, Arsenal should not think negatively but positively as they host Zagreb at the Emirates Stadium on match day 5. But they MUST eschew any form of match complacency and not to underate Zagreb. Which will amounted to self murder. Let’s wait for Boss Gunners update and press conference to know the situation the Gunners are in, before we start to give our own takes on how Arsenal will beat Tottenham Hotspur at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday evening.

  14. Our options:
    1. Qualify and get hammered in R-16
    2. Finish 3rd and play on thursday nights like those chickens
    3. Finish 4th and face humiliation.

    I would prefer the 3rd option because we already have had our fair share of humiliations…. will one more really affect us?

    btw, thanks Arsene for this

  15. Does anyone actually want AFC to even go through? I know I don’t , I’d rather put all our energy into the EPL , For the first time in yonks theres a realistic chance we can win it! The less distractions the better as far as im concerned . Lets face it were not going to win the champions league anyway lets be honest with ourselves.

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