Match Preview, Olympiacos v Arsenal: Not the End of the World

At this point, there’s no secret about Arsenal’s objective in this evening’s Champions League encounter at Olympiacos: The Gunners must win by two goals or by any score except 1-0 or 2-1 to advance to the competition’s knockout stage.

Falling short would mean Arsenal wouldn’t advance from the Champions League group stages for the first time in 16 years. It would also cast the club into the Europa League, with its potentially awkward Thursday matches in far-flung locales.

We’re at this point because the Gunners fell to Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia and Olympiacos at home in their first two matches, so any talk of failure should really focus on those two performances. Winning today by the required margin represents a much tougher task.

That’s particularly true because Arsenal will be far from full strength. We won’t rehash the team’s injury problems but will only note that the absence of Alexis, when goals against a compact defense are essential, could be decisive.

In those conditions, it won’t surprise us if the Gunners don’t succeed to the necessary degree. And that outcome won’t be a harbinger of the apocalypse.

Yes, winning is preferable, and this team needs to get back in the habit after its difficult November. Joining Europe’s best in the Champions League knockout stage also bolsters Arsenal’s reputation, its finances, and fan enthusiasm. We’re not arguing any of those points.

But, in and of itself, an exit from the Champions League will not be cataclysmic.

That’s mainly because Arsenal don’t have a realistic chance of winning the Champions League. Even if they receive a kindly draw in the first knockout match and buck the recent trend of losing to that initial opponent, the likelihood of taking out Bayern Munich or Barcelona or even Juventus or PSG over two legs is remote.

The Europa League, on the other hand, is a competition Arsenal might actually win.

Aside from that calculation, there’s a far worse outcome than failure in Athens—additional injuries. If any more first team midfielders or forwards are forced off this evening and then are ruled out for any of the busy festive schedule, Arsenal’s prospects in the Premier League will look grim. That would actually be disastrous, given the tight competition at the top of the table and the Gunners’ legitimate chance of overtaking current leaders Leicester City in the next few weeks.

How much will manager Arsène Wenger account for these implications when he sends his team out this evening? He’s not the type to shirk a challenge or to take a tactical loss; that’s why such matches as the 2004 FA Cup semifinal against Manchester United, when he dipped into his squad to rest several starters for their run at invincibility and history, sticks in the memory.

Wenger has also sounded the charge in his comments before the match, saying “There is one positive thing for us - we know exactly what we have to do. We know that we have to go for it from the start. So let's do that and hopefully we can get through.”

An indication of Wenger’s aggressiveness will be his deployment of Theo Walcott. The forward played 25 minutes against Sunderland on Saturday after more than a month on the sidelines with a calf injury. Does the manager give Walcott the start on the right side of Arsenal’s attack and again send out Olivier Giroud as the team’s center forward? That would be the most attack-minded team Arsenal could field at the moment.

It would also be risky in the short- and medium terms. Walcott won’t provide much defensive cover for right back Hector Bellerin, and fielding both Giroud and Walcott, the only two healthy options to lead the Arsenal line, courts injury danger.

Wenger is a risk taker, but he’s not crazy. He’ll acknowledge the significant downsides and, more than likely, keep one of Giroud or Walcott in reserve.

There’s not much choice to make elsewhere in the Arsenal setup, meaning Mathieu Flamini and Aaron Ramsey will continue their partnership in midfield. Theirs was a significant combination offensively on Saturday—Flamini-to-Ramsey was the team’s top passing connection—but their focus forward left gaps in the defense that Sunderland exploited on the counterattack.

Because Olympiacos must only avoid defeat, it can sit back, stymie Arsenal’s attack, and look to break. Arsenal’s midfielders will therefore need to be more attentive than they were on Saturday.

A more solid midfield will mark an important development for Arsenal’s league campaign as well. Whatever the outcome in Athens, home is where the focus should be.

Players to Watch:

Olympiacos. Esteban Cambiasso. The experienced midfielder will be the man to control the tempo and keep Arsenal’s playmaker Mesut Özil from finding space. If he can shut down the approaches to the Olympiacos penalty area and move the ball to attack quickly, Cambiasso will put the Greek side in a strong position to advance.

Arsenal. Olivier Giroud. The Frenchman has been producing the goals, ten in Arsenal’s league and European matches so far this season, and can trouble Olympiacos on set pieces. If Wenger prefers Theo Walcott’s speed and movement against the home side’s defensive setup, Giroud can be a decisive substitute.

Tottenham 1 Arsenal 2: Three Things We Learned from the Capital One Cup

Mathieu Flamini’s stunning 78^th-minute strike proved the difference as Arsenal eliminated Tottenham from the Capital One Cup, 2-1.

Although Flamini’s volley was a rare moment of quality in this match, the two sides put on an intriguing and spirited show. There were personnel and tactical tweaks, hearty challenges, and a few nervous moments for Arsenal’s defenders.

Here are three points that stood out.

Mathieu Flamini does a wicked Aaron Ramsey impression

We don’t know if Flamini can deliver mundane lines with a slight Welsh lilt, and it’s almost certain he can’t reproduce Ramsey’s level of performance on a regular basis, but for this one night at White Hart Lane, Flamini looked every bit the all-energy, goal-scoring midfielder.

Arsenal’s first goal owed to Flamini’s effort to follow up on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s shot. In the 26^th minute, Flamini takes off into the Tottenham area just as Oxlade-Chamberlain lets the ball run across himself and turns. Flamini continues his run where Tottenham’s central defenders don’t follow, pounces on the rebound, and lifts a lovely poacher’s finish over Tottenham keeper Michel Vorm.

That’s the kind of energy and product Ramsey has produced when he’s in form, from a similar position in Arsenal’s central midfield.

As Flamini explained, "I tried to be a bit creative today. I had the opportunity. I felt there was maybe a possibility, so I went forward [for the first goal], and the ball came back to my feet."

Flamini’s game-winner was opportunistic in a different way. He has a lash at a poor clearance on the edge of the Tottenham area and drives it into Vorm’s net. The same intent—albeit with a lower degree of difficulty and less spectacular execution—that Ramsey delivered on with his eye-catching Champions League goal against Galatasaray last season.

During the rest of the match, Flamini harried Tottenham, occasionally as the team’s most forward presser as Ramsey often does, and dropped beside Mikel Arteta when Tottenham advanced.

This range of activity meant that Arteta and Flamini did not clog the midfield as much as we might have expected the duo to do; instead, Flamini produced an attacking threat and end product that Arsenal’s central midfield has struggled to create so far this season.

Arsène Wenger agrees with Jack Wilshere

The Arsenal manager made 10 changes to the side that played at Chelsea on Saturday, leaving only Ramsey, who reprised his national team role as a free playmaker. This despite Wenger’s comments before the match intimating he’d resist wholesale rotation:

It is an opportunity for Arsenal to win an important game and for the players who play for our club to defend our club and qualify. Apart from that, we played with the team in Zagreb, and we didn’t win, so we want to come back now and win our cup games because that’s vital to us.

It’s that last hint about the consequences of rotation in Zagreb that led us to think more of the first choice XI might be involved from the start on Wednesday.

But the manager seems to share Jack Wilshere’s view that there’s a scent of poo about Tottenham.

He holds his nose at the Capital One Cup as well, when necessary. It’s long been fourth on his list of priorities, and a derby matchup didn’t change that thinking.

This is an understandable--and now vindicated—choice, given where the match falls in Arsenal’s calendar. In three days, the team travels to Leicester, needing a win against an undefeated opponent to spark its league season. Then, on Tuesday comes the absolute must-win home contest against Olympiacos in the Champions League.

With three matches in six days, Wenger looked past the passion of a cup tie with the rivals and gave his preferred starters a rest. Flamini, especially, took advantage of the opportunity.

Arsenal’s right was all wrong

The pair of right back Mathieu Debuchy and forward Joel Campbell was the most vulnerable part of Arsenal’s setup. Campbell’s defensive interventions were notable because they were so rare, and Debuchy suffered on his own.

The Frenchman was the architect of some of his problems as well, making questionable decisions to advance, getting sucked in to the center of the defense, and giving the ball away far too often.

It was Debuchy’s errant central pass that started the Tottenham move leading to Calum Chambers’s unfortunate own goal. Debuchy also got caught under the cross-field pass just enough to allow Tottenham’s Nacer Chadli to control it and send the ball toward David Ospina’s goal.

Campbell, playing as one of two inverted wingers, couldn’t get a free header on goal in the first half.

On the evidence of this match and Debuchy’s performance a week ago in Zagreb, the pair aren’t close to working themselves into the manager’s preferred lineup.

Extra time

Tottenham adjusted its pressing game to focus on Chambers and Debuchy, unlike last season’s league encounter when they targeted Francis Coquelin and Ramsey in the center of midfield.

With Arteta’s vision, positioning, and calm on the ball at the base of Arsenal’s midfield, an aggressive midfield press might not have worked as well; plus, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino no doubt studied Chambers against Liverpool and Debuchy against Dinamo Zagreb and decided they were easier prey. Chambers acquitted himself well, despite his decisive part in the Tottenham goal.