It’s like Groundhog Day for the modern day John Jensen.

Well done Elneny!

Deserved

masterstroke

ok, no silly mistakes now. As it stands Olympiakos need 3 goals at the Emirates as a minimum

A casualness in the players’ mentality is not solely the fault of the coach.

These are highly paid ‘professionals’ with everything laid on a plate for them. Their mentality is their own responsibility, not the coach’s.

So I bemoan the quality of our long range shooting and then we bang in 2 goals from 25 yards.

Give up if I were you....................

Yes to the novice it looked like you were saying something else, but that was the obvious interpretation of your post

You're taking it out of context quoting it like that

Not to get anyone's hopes up but Kane has gone off in the spurs match and has a bag of ice on his knee. Now I'd happily wager £100 he's fully fit for the NLD because there always seems to be some sort of Kane injury concern before the NLD and he comes out fit, diving and scoring penalties.
(oh, he's also scored 2 goals)

All's well that ends well. Surely that's enough.

Full time 3-1. Reflects the dominance we had, the only chances Olympiakos had were us gifting them the ball.
That isn't tie over but it is a really strong position to be in for the 2nd leg

Well, after moaning a bit throughout the game, 3-1 away is obviously a great result. We were better in every area and the only reason they were even in the game was because we let them in. This tie should be as good as over, we shouldn't lose at home and we should definitely not let in three goals.

My hopes are already up

It should be but Arsenal always make me nervous in knock out ties.
I remember being 3-0 up from the away leg v Osterands and then conceding 2 goals in a minute at home to go 2-0 down and suddenly only a goal away from leveling the tie up.

On the mistakes playing it about at the back, my take on it is that Leno isn’t quite up there with the best GKs with the ball at his feet. Allison and Ederson are the best proponents and they lead the playing out for City and Liverpool. If Leno isn’t good enough to ‘take point’ you need someone else in the back like who is good enough to do that. Whilst decent in possession nobody really is a budding Beckenbauer so I think we’ll keep seeing these mistakes. Add poor positioning and either a lack of pace or error proneness in our central midfielders and it’s going to keep happening.

Partey is the one who, if we can get him up to speed, is press resistant and calm enough to make it work.

Deceptive result

Wasn’t really impressed by that. Our football was largely uninspiring, the usual ridiculous mistake, Willian not impressing and Saka out of sorts.

Really think Gabriel bailed out Arteta and the Egyptian john Jensen really put icing on a cake that didn’t deserve it. For me Pépé has to play, even in the few moments he contributes he looks more decisive than willian who just wants to retain possession.

Can’t see us getting far in this competition and expect us to get gubbed as soon as we meet someone decent

Great result.

Very positive attacking performance albeit with a sprinkling of typically Arsenal unforced errors.

Some flowing football and progressive overlaps from the fullbacks.

Ødegaard becoming more influential, although I'd like to see him be slightly more adventurous at times instead of playing the safe pass (not on the edge of his own box obviously). His vision could be key against the better sides.

Partey had his worst game in an Arsenal shirt, not sure he's totally fit.

One thing is for sure, on another day our sloppiness would have been punished.

Pundit on Swedish tv said Arsenal were closer to beating Arsenal than Olympiakos were, that about sums it up.

I know we scored two goals from shots outside the box, but to me there's no question Gabriel scored the goal of the game. You can watch a lot of football matches without seeing a better header, seemed to hang in the air forever and it was just controlled and placed to perfection.

Bloody hell
We contrive to make things difficult for ourselves.
Was absolutely furious with yet another piss up of a goal. Leno has to be more *%^@*** clued up for goodness sake.
But what a header!!!!!
Love that aggression to thump that in the net.
*%^@*** defender trying to get it ruled out by playing hurt. d*******.
You saw Elneny moving forward with the ball and im thinking hang on is he going to try one and bang!!!! In it goes. Great shot.
Really needed that response.
Would have been aploplectic if we had shot ourselves in the foot again by not winning.
3 away goals. Fantastic

Free Martinelli.

Milan looked really good today.
Really hope they finish Utd off next week.
Looks like spurs are through though.

Playing out from the back is obviously a risky ploy and I am not sure that Leno is good enough or composed enough with the ball at his feet to play it to the degree we do. I think we maybe need to find a better balance in terms of the level of risk we take in some of these situations.

Ederson at City has the passing range and composure of a midfield player so even though he's maybe not the best in terms of actual goalkeeping skills his ability with the ball at his feet is second to none and vital to City's style of play.

Milan looked very good, david. Lacked the cutting edge to finish their excellent build-up play, though.

If we could eradicate the majority of these individual errors we would start to look a very different side. Our league form is poor but since the horror run ended against Chelsea, we create a lot more chances, defend well, but just cant finish teams off through a combination of defensive howlers and not being clinical in front of goal. If Arteta can somehow galvanise this team like he did for last years FA Cup run, we could still have a decent chance in the Europa league, but we need to cut out the mistakes because they are crippling any chance of significant improvement.

Even more impressive if you consider they were missing their three best attacking players in Ibrahimovic, Calhanoglu and Rebic. United looked very ordinary, without Rashford in the side there was nobody else really on Fernandes wavelength and he was left to try and do it all on his own offensively.

Yeah, as frustrating as these gifted goals are, at least we're generally playing well now. It seems like cutting these errors out of our game would be easier than improving our form if we were playing generally bad. Just looks to me like we can go up a level quite quickly if the team suddenly clicks, there's certainly potential there.

Hi ltg,

Was it Deportivo who gave us a footballing lesson in the CL once.

And eradicating the individual errors would have a massive beneficial effect on confidence

To take an alternative possibility on Martinelli. Maybe Arteta sees him as a centre forward. He’s getting on the bench ahead of Nketiah. But at the moment that is 3rd choice CF. If Lacazette leaves in the summer Martinelli may get more opportunities.
That said I would agree some more minutes out wide for him would be good. I wonder whether wide left with Aubameyang as CF is maybe not the best mix, both occupy the same channel. Martinelli wide left with Lacazette as CF feels a better balance

The post was tongue-in-cheek, but is is quite odd that he has gone from a kid who was seen as a generational talent with the ability to explode onto the world scene to one who cannot get even a minute of playing time anymore.

I was hoping he was our going to be our very own Ronaldo but clearly Arteta does not think so (even before his injury he was not really playing him that much) so perhaps he is being massively overrrated by us fans.

That said, if he genuinely is a generational talent, I would have thought his development could be better handled than it is at the moment.

I’m more optimistic as I think we can win this competition. Especially if Milan can knock Manchester United out. Make no mistake, if we play Milan they’d be a big threat (as would Roma and Rangers). But of the teams still in it, Manchester United and Tottenham are the only two sides I’d put as favourites if we play them.

My predictions for the teams to get through to the next round are, in alphabetical order:

Ajax
Arsenal
Granada
Milan
Rangers
Roma
Tottenham
Villarreal

Of that lot, as I say it’s only Tottenham I would make as favourites against us, although if Manchester United do get through against Milan, I’d add them. Milan and Roma would be big threats but I’d fancy us against either, and Rangers.

From the 8 europa ties there are only really 2 that are in the balance. The other 6 have commanding leads for each team:
Arsenal, Ajax, Spurs, Roma, Granada, Villarreal

You’d have long odds any any of those 6 not qualifying, all 6 would have been favourites before the tie as well.

Hoping Milan can knock out Man U. If you take Man U and Harry Kane out of this competition I think we can win it

We have won cups (FA Cups) before or gotten to finals of a cup (CL, Europa Cup) making incredible runs and defying the odds.

This is what has to happen for us to even get to the Europa Cup finals. It's very unlikely but we all hope. Both Milan and Roma are in top 4 in Serie A. Ajax are well managed and technical. We have a poor record against Mourinho managed sides and Tottenham are better than us and have been for a time, as painful as that is to say.

It's going to have be one of those 'once more into the breach, dear friends' type of cup run.

Hoping the Ødegaard goal takes his play up a level or two. I am willing him to do well every time I see him on the pitch. Sidenote: we are missing Ramsey's dynamism very much right now.

Anyway, if we get a good fee and he's open to it, I would be for Ødegaard included in the squad. We have a very decent young (if 25 and under is young) squad for the future: Saka, Gabriel, Smith-Rowe, Tierney, Martinelli, Pépé, Holding, Saliba possibly, Reiss Nelson, I'll add Nketiah.

This is a not a bad core of players. Partey and Mari are in their prime ages.

Interesting quotes from Arteta, doesn’t seem to think we are taking enough risks

“They are there to make things happen and win games. Winning games is decided near the boxes and they have to be more encouraged to attack those situations, to take risks, to take shots and to create opportunities to dribble because that’s their quality”

Watched Gabriel’s header a few times. That’s his 3rd for us from corners. It’s such a fantastic header, he’s running away from the direction he puts the header. So much power and desire and technique in the placement of the header.