Arsenal v. Olympiakos – Preview & LiveBlog!

By: Perry | October 3rd, 2012

Well, now that we’ve moved on (kind of) from the Chelsea defeat, we have our eyes set on the UCL today. We face a determined Olympiakos side who are as usual at the top of their table in the Greek league and are 100% to boot. With the Greek side losing to Schalke in the first match of the group stage, they are playing catch up and will feel they need to get something out of this game if they have any serious ambition in the UCL.

Arsenal-vs-Olympiakos

We were pretty fortunate to come away with a 2-1 away win against Montpellier a fortnight ago after much maligned performance and the squad will want to put on a more convincing display in front of the capacity home crowd.

The man we need watch is a Spaniard by the name of Jose Holebas. Olympiakos narrowly won their last match after David Fuster headed in from a Jose Holebas free-kick to seal the 1 nil win. With Arsenal conceding our last three goals from set-plays, including two against on Saturday, we’ll need to be especially weary of Holebas’ dangerous deliveries into the box. Definitely expect Olympiakos to test our defensive resolve with long balls and free kicks every time they are given an opportunity, while the Greek side will definitely have plenty of men behind the ball while we are in possession.

jose_holebas_olympiakos

I truly hope Giroud gets the nod to start because we need his size to not only help with our own set pieces (seriously, does anyone have statistics on our percentage converted from corners and offensive free kicks?) and to defend Olympiakos’ threatening set pieces. Being it is a Champions League game at home, it will be interesting to see whether Wenger sticks to Gervinho as the center forward, or maybe brings in Giroud from the start to give the Frenchman a better chance of finding the back of the net, and also give the our boys a physical presence from the get go.

On paper, we are a world of a better team, but we cannot forget our last meeting with this club in December of last year. We lost 3-1 with our only goal coming from Benayoun. We can’t disrespect our opponent here as in our last 3 meetings with the Greeks, we’ve only won once and lost twice. However, on our side is the fact that we’ve never lost to Greek opposition in Europe at home, so I’ll take that for what it is, not to mention we are extremely strong at home in the UCL historically speaking. We have to treat this match as if it is a knockout match so that we can ensure the 3 points and be able to rotate in our fringe/squad/older players for the last two matches.

Injury wise, we all know Diaby will be out for this one after his self-inflicted thigh injury. Sagna and Rosicky still out, and Wilshere and Frimps still a bit out from a return. Our real concern today will be whether Arteta is fit for this match. Apparently he picked up an ankle injury and was set to be tested this morning. Even if Arteta might be a big miss, Coquelin could fill in nicely in the deeper defensive midfield role.

In the defense, Carl Jenkinson and Gibbs are automatic starters, while Wenger has another vital decision to make about his central defensive partnership. Koscielny might have scored the equalizer against City, but the there is no doubt that he was at fault for all three recent goals conceded from set pieces. Per Mertesacker has had a stellar start to the season, and I think it’s very possible the BFG comes in to partner with el Capitan.

My best guess at the starting lineup will be as follows (will update as lineups are released):
Mannone; Jenkinson, Koscielny/Per Mer, Vermaelen, Gibbs; Arteta/Coquelin, Ramsey, Cazorla; Walcott, Podolski; Giroud

***UPDATE*** LINEUPS ARE IN:

Starting: Mannone; Jenkinson, Koscielny, Vermaelen, Gibbs; Coquelin, Cazorla, Arteta; Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gervinho, Podolski
Subs: Shea, Santos, Djourou, Arshavin, Ramsey, Walcott, Giroud.

My score prediction: 2-1 Arsenal after a very hard fought match.
My MOTM prediction: None other than Cazorla, I think he’ll once again pull the attacking strings.

Chat you all in the LiveBlog, match starts at 2:45 EST!

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Category: Champions League, LiveBlog

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Sperez

Just saw the highlights (slow internet connection), but I watched City x Dortmund on TV. City snatched a totally undeserved point in the end (joke penalty decision). Hart was immense. City would be embarrassed without him. Jurgen Klopp to Arsenal, please !!!
Perry S.

Just so everyone knows why Per Mer didn't feature today, he called into the office sick. Hopefully he wasn't playing hooky...
sh31kh

wow, just wow. Didn't manage to watch the game today so just went to catch the highlights just now. Some thoughts:
- Kos and Verm looked uncharacteristically unstable at the back, is kos still rusty due to lack of game time this season? Weird i know but he has to really shake off that rust fast. Vermaelen is just verminator, sometimes awesome, sometimes looking as if his program has a bug. If this goes on, BFG becomes the undroppable, doesn't matter if verminator is the captain.
-gervinho is really one enigma. On some days he misses chances bendtner himself would have been proud of, today, that goal was sublime simply for the fact it was on target, rather powerful, and totally caught the keeper off guard. And of all the team members right now other than theo, the only person i would put my bet to keep showing smokes from his heels to the opposite defender in reaching the byline and giving a cut back is the Brain. He's has that explosiveness. Even theo loses by a close margin simply because Brain's close control is much more impressive. Needs to try lose the "hog the ball" tendency though.
- Is podolski going to be more effective in the centre forward role if we can find somebody to play his position currently? I would think so, and that would totally leave our CF position loaded.
- Whoever who said that giroud is an asset for his knockdowns alone (perry, is that you?) is spot on for the jackpot. If the whole team can take advantage like ramsey did today, that's one more powerful scoring arsenal we are adding.
Felegy

Lineups announced. Surprised to see Kos again over Per. He's not even on the bench!? Looks like Arteta will slip into Diaby's role (not the role of getting injured 15 minutes in hopefully) and Coquelin will sit back in mid. Poor old Giroud again finds himself on the bench. He's gotta get some starts to find his groove right?
Anyway, not sure if I am watching at work or taping and watching later but either way a win will make my day/night :)