As Arsenal prepares to battle Olympiacos in Athens tonight knowing that they must beat the Greek champions by at least two goals or a score line of 3-2 or better, Gunners striker Olivier Giroud has issued a battle cry to his teammates.
“We’ll have to be at 100 per cent because 95 per cent won’t be sufficient,” he told French newspaper L’Equipe.
“It’s a group that was in our range and we put ourselves in difficulty by losing our first two matches, now we have the chance to show our mental strength.
“We must have 40 per cent of our team missing, but we have a more well-equipped squad than in previous years.
“The guys who have replaced them did the job at the weekend, like Joel Campbell. We know that we have the quality to impose ourselves there.”
Team News
Santi Cazorla and Francis Coquelin are both now out for the foreseeable future while Chilean international forward Alexis Sanchez has returned to his homeland where he is being treated for a hamstring strain he picked up in the match against Norwich City at Carrow Road.
Good news for Arsenal though is that Aaron Ramsey completed a full match for the first time since October, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott both available for tonight’s match.
In goal we expect to see former Chelsea shot-stopper Petr Cech retain his place while remembering that it was Wenger who dropped Cech in favour of Ospina that he put Arsenal in the position they are now following the Colombian internationals own goal in the 2-3 defeat when the two teams met at the Emirates back in September.
Defensively the Gunners have no fitness issues with Koscielny and Mertesacker at centre-back while Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal take up their familiar fullback positions.
With Coquelin out injured it will be up to Mathieu Flamini to administer the team’s defensive midfield duties while Ramsey is given the job of taking over from Spanish playmaker Santi Cazorla.
Oxlade-Chamberlin and Joel Campbell will be called upon to provide the goal-scoring balls for lone striker Oliver Giroud while our pick for PFA player-of-the-year Mesut Ozil has the opportunity to show why he is the best No.10 currently playing in England.
With Theo Walcott just returning to the team we expect to see the England international on the bench, but will certainly take part in the match should the Gunners still be needing goals as we enter the final 20 minutes.
Summery
While we know Arsenal have a tough task ahead they can take consolation knowing that Porto boss Marco Silva will not set up a team to sit back and defend as would be the case with many other managers given a similar situation.
In the past Arsenal have always played well when their backs have been against the wall, and given the fact they somehow always manage to make it to the group stage we are backing the Gunners to win 3-1 with bet365 at odds of 14/1.
Predicted XI: Cech; Bellerin, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Monreal; Flamini, Ramsey; Ozil, Oxlade-Chamberlian, Campbell; Giroud.
