Willian now with seven assists in a season that has been really poor overall

Yep there is a casualness in our mentality.

Yes?

ref came over to the sideline, thought he was reviewing the goal, he came to book the Olympiakos coach.

Goal given. Phew. It's just a great header - would have been a terrible call to rule it out

Confusing or what?

3-1 Elneny!!!!!!!!!!! 25 yards smashed it in

Like I said, bringing on Elneny is just what we need for that extra goal threat

Elneny!

Elneny!!!!!!

Awesome Elneny. Surely VAR won’t chip in here.

Hahahahah el nenny rubs salt in my face

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