Petr Cech has vast experience in the Champions League and has come away with a winners medal and a runners-up medal with Chelsea. Now he wants to try and emulate that success with this Arsenal side, but first of all we have to reach the knockout stages.
According to Petr, the final Group game in Athens is already a knockout game. He told Arsenal.com: “We are obviously delighted with the way we managed to win our game and with the fact Bayern Munich put in a strong performance and won their game.
“That is what we needed in today’s round. We did our bit, they did their bit and it is now a grand finale for us in the last game, and we are literally entering the play-off already. So we are going into a play-off situation and we know what we need to get so hopefully we will be ready for that.”
The task is simple. We just have to go and break down a dogged Olympiakos in a hostile atmosphere in two weeks time and win by two clear goals. Cech thinks that Arsenal now have the confidence to go and do exactly that to go through. “Well, they were very efficient when they played here,” Cech continued. “so we know if we create chances, play our game and put them under pressure, we have a chance to score our goals in the game and make the difference we need. So we can go in a confident mood because a few rounds ago we were almost out of the competition and now we have everything in our hands to progress. That is the situation, which is actually good for us.”
We certainly know exactly what the task is ahead, and much has been made of the fact that we have played there three times recently, and have yet to win, but as far as I remember, two of those games were after we had already qualified. Wenger assures us it will be different this time. “Sometimes when we played at Olympiacos we had already qualified, this time we go to Olympiacos heading to qualify. It will be tough but we have to believe we can do it and I believe we can do it.”
Wenger believes,Cech believes it, and we all believe it to!
Onwards and Upwards!