Man of the match Martin Odegaard spoke to TNT: ““It was nice to be back. I have missed it and I felt good, and it was a good win.
“That is what I want to do, especially with those forward players, especially with Viktor [Gyokeres] who is so aggressive and always a threat. That is my job, to create things for them. I could have had a few more assists, but we got the win and I enjoyed it.”
That leaves Arsenal in a decent position after the second week.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 2 | 6 | 6 |
| 2 | Real Madrid | 2 | 6 | 6 |
| 3 | PSG | 2 | 5 | 6 |
| 4 | Inter Milan | 2 | 5 | 6 |
| 5 | Arsenal | 2 | 4 | 6 |
Here’s David Hytner’s report from the Emirates.
Goalscorer Gabriel Martinelli spoke to TNT: “It was a great ball from Myles, we were talking about me attacking the space in the box before the game and he did great with the ball. I could have done better in that one.”
“It’s good for the club, we want to have the best players around us and we have a really good group. We want to win every title that we play in and that is what we are going to try to do.”
“We play for Arsenal and we want to win every single game of the season if possible and we want to win every trophy that we can.”
Full-time: Arsenal 2-0 Olympiakos
That turned into a decent workout for Arsenal’s players after that Arteta team selection. Martin Odegaard purred, and Bukayo Saka completed the win for the Londoners. Arteta had to make the changes to see it out. Olympiakos were decent and are treated to some Greek music as they applaud their fans.
90+5 min: The Emirates has been tense but now those who haven’t dashed to the tube are singing loud. Two wins from two. We’ll see Max Dowman yet in this competition. But not here.
90+3 min: The result settled, let’s hear again from Russell Yong: “Not to turn this into a back-and-forth but, in response to Richard Moore, he seems to think I’m an Arsenal fan agitating for Nwaneri to play every game; I am neither. My point was merely to explain why the impatience exists among certain quarters. I think Arteta has been eminently sensible in the speed at which he has integrated Nwaneri and, as I said, there’s a lot of football to be played this season and he will certainly get his chances. But it’s a cliche that saying anything remotely positive or hopeful about a young player is to “pile pressure” on them. When the philosophy is “if you’re good enough, you’re old enough”, the difference between 18 and 19 is academic. At the end of the day, in a team like Arsenal’s, you’re either a trusted first-team player or not. We will know by season’s end.”
Goal! Arsenal 2-0 Olympiakos (Saka, 90+2)
Relief for Arsenal, pain for Tzolakis who lets the ball go through his legs. The supplier was Odegaard, the finish was from Saka, the Gunners old firm.
Updated
90+1 min: Saliba again does well to stop a ball aimed at El Kaabi. Strefezza has been booked, when it was his cross might have been much better.
90 min: Five minutes will be added on, five nervy minutes.
88 min: El Kaabi has a headed chance, the cross coming in from the right. Big Evangelos was up for that, he thought it was in but it was off Saliba…there’s a penalty check that’s not given.
87 min: Saka lashes it long for Gyokeres to run the channels and get penalised for handball.
85 min: Podence jabs the ball to Chiquinho, who forces a fine save from Raya. They have a corner, in front of their own fans. Gyokeres has to head clear. This has not been easy.
84 min: I was at this game, a famous comeback for Olympiakos. Could there be a late repeat? Their manager back then? Marco Silva.
82 min: So close for Arsenal. Great save from Tzolakis, and again, both efforts from Odegaard. Saka had set up those chances with his pass.
80 min: Danger from El Kaabi means there’s an Olympiakos corner.
78 min: Odegaard can still play his part, then. He has a job to do, as Olympiakos continue to look dangerous.
77 min: Arsenal have a free-kick, and it takes El Kaabi to clear it. Odegaard is still on the field, it was Trossard who was subbed. Meanwhile, Declan Rice is booked for a foul where he admits his guilt.
75 min: Gabriel has a knock, having pulled up when he and Raya were going for the same ball. On comes Christian Mosquera.
Olympiakos change: Lorenzo Scipioni for Dani Garcia.
73 min: Big cheers for big players: on some Saka and Eze. Off go Martinelli and the excellent Odegaard, who had faded a tad.
71 min: This doesn’t feel like a Dowman/Nwanieri game. It’s too tense, and the opponent too dangerous. Dowman has until the sixth game of the groups to still be 15 and a Champions League player.
70 min: Richard Moore gets in touch: “It’s a while back on the Arsenal live report now, but Russell Yong’s point about Nwaneri is silly and irresponsible. There’s no sensible measure by which he’s been around for three seasons. He made a two minute substitute appearance when he was 15 in the 22/23 season, and another when he was 16 the following season. Last season was his first full season, then, and he played most of it before his 18th birthday this past March. Phil Foden didn’t have a comparable season until he 19/20, when he was mostly nineteen. Messi was also older than Nwaneri when he had his breakout season in 2005/06.
“So let’s not pile pressure on Nwaneri by suggesting that he’s somehow underachieving because he’s not an Arsenal regular yet. Arteta still trusts him enough to have made him a first-half replacement for Odegaard against Leeds.”
69 min: Gyokeres loses the run of the ball, rather unfortunately, El Kaabi’s goal was offside by mere millimetres.
67 min: Oof! Olympiakos have the ball in the net, Dani Garcia’s flicked header is saved by Raya. El Kaabi taps in but there was an offside, and that’s confirmed via VAR.
Updated
66 min: The Gunners yet to shoot on target since scoring. Gyok has gone quiet, too. Eze is warming up…
64 min: Arteta is asking his team to push on. Instant response: Odegaard plays a beauty, Trossard cuts in, too many touches, and is blocked off.
62 min: Timber has to sweep up when Podence makes one of his scuttles down the flank. Olympiakos really are no mugs though nobody sensible would have suggested that.
61 min: Zubimendi is booked for fouling a speeding Martins who might have been away. That was a hauling back. Martins soon departs, as Mehdi Taremi, a fine player, at Inter last year, comes on. He’s a wily fox of a striker.
60 min: Lewis-Skelly takes a knock but Arsenal play on. Trossard takes on Costinha who is a doughty customer. Olympiakos to make changes soon.
59 min: Gabriel is booked for delaying the restart.
Kari Tulinius gets in touch: “I’m not worried about Nwaneri. Last season, things didn’t seem to be clicking for PSG’s Senny Mayulu at first, but once he’d gotten used to the hurly-burly of senior football, it all clicked. The wealth of big clubs makes it tempting to solve every problem with money, but often it’s a matter of time and patience. Senny Mayulu just scored against Barcelona. Nwaneri looks like that sort of talent.”
58 min: Gunners subs: Merino off, Rice on. Ben White off, Jurrien Timber on.
56 min: Daniel Podence’s little legs carry him to the byline and his cross is dangerous. It’s ruled he had gone out of play but a replay suggests otherwise.
55 min: Arteta looks a tad tense. This wasn’t going to be easy as some suggested but increasingly heavy weather is being made.
53 min: Feel old yet? Trossard has another chance but smashes wide. Declan Rice is coming on. Merino is down after smashing into Tzolakis, the keeper.
51 min: Gyokeres sets up Trossard but the move doesn’t quite come off. The final ball has gone awry in recent moments.
Number one in the UK when Max Dowman was born: the number one song in the UK on the week ending 31st December 2009 was the re-release of “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine. The anti Simon Cowell hit.
On the U.S. Billboard charts around December 31, 2009, the top song was “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys
Avatar was the number one film on both sides of the Atlantic.
49 min: Martins looks a good player and his ball to Chiquinho means Podence forces a corner. Noise in the Olympiakos corner but disappointment as it’s cleared. Applause for young Max Dowman as he runs the line in warming up.
47 min: Olympiakos start on the offensive, Lewis-Skelly asked to sweep up as a defender rather than sweep forward on the overlap.
Away we go in the second half
46 min: At the Emirates, the players are back out. The atmosphere seems a tad quiet, though the Greek fans are making plenty of noise.
Follow the latest with Michael Butler here.
Latest scores in the Champions League
17:45
Qarabag 2-0 Copenhagen – FT
Union Saint-Gilloise 0-4 Newcastle – FT
20:00
Arsenal 1-0 Olympiacos – HT
Barcelona 1-1 Paris St-Germain – HT
Bayer Leverkusen 0-0 PSV Eindhoven – HT
Borussia Dortmund 1-0 Athletic Club – HT
Monaco 1-2 Manchester City – HT
Napoli 1-0 Sporting – HT
Villarreal 1-0 Juventus – HT
Half-time: Arsenal 1-0 Olympiakos
Just that Martinelli strikes divides two teams who looked more well matched as the game rolled on. Martin Odegaard has been superb, back to his best? Viktor Gyokeres has trundled with menace, now can he find his shooting boots?
45 min: Just two minutes added to a breathless, entertaining half. Martinelli tries to escape away but is stopped. Merino is down, as is Ortega of Olympiakos. Both quickly resume with the promise of half-time electrolytes.
44 min: El Kaabi falls in the Arsenal box…there’s a flag on the play from VAR but he went down too easily. No penalty given, nor was it deserved.
43 min: Peter Oh gets in touch: “What would self-styled Zeus Evangelos Marinakis do if Panathinaikos Olympiakos were to face Nottingham Forest in Europe? Blast thunderbolts from his eyes and fingers, and then instantly transport to the other side and block the bolts with his golden scepter?!”
41 min: More Gyokeres marauding, another fine Zubimendi pass, and he fires wide. One of these should come off soon. Next, Trossard blams over, set up by Martinelli and out.
39 min: Another chance, this time for Podence who swings and doesn’t make a proper connection.
37 min: Hello, another Olympiakos attack. Podence, the wee man, smashes in a cross and Ayoub El Kaabi nods wide. He’s the danger man. This is turning into a tough assignment. Or a dangerous one, at least.
Updated
35 min: More Odegaard skill, sends away Martinelli and corner as Ben White joins the throng. Arsenal have delighted with their passing. Much less rugby union mauling than we have become used to. The corner from Trossard is a beauty and a foul by Saliba on the keeper is ruled as Gabriel gets to it.
33 min: Ally McCoist has been thrilling to that pass from Odegaard and compared it to the ball distribution skills of the late, much missed Ray Wilkins. What a player he was, by the way.
31 min: Gyokeres is released by an Odegaard ball and goes on a bulwarking run, blasting through defenders, only to be blocked at the moment of truth. Martinelli was waiting for a pass that was never likely to come.
30 min: Arsenal’s early dominance seems a while back now. Olympiakos are chasing them down and have plenty to offer in attack.
28 min: Chiquinho’s free-kick is good, and there’s a Restos tries to get on the end of it. Arsenal clear their lines.
26 min: Mendilibar is booked for barracking from the sidelines. At the back of the posh seats, Evangelos Marinakis is looming, pacing up and down.
25 min: Ben White is given long throw duty. Merino attempts the spectacular but that is given as a foul for dangerous play. There was a brief penalty claim there.
23 min: Gyokeres is down, after running into an opposing defender. His hair is out of place but he will play on.
21 min: The Greek team look quite handy here, and have pushed on. Credit to them.
19 min: A spell of Olympiakos possession, and they show off their threat. Daniel Podence, once of Wolves, forces a fine save from Raya, who had stayed alert. Gelson Martins and Chiquinho look like decent technicians.
17 min: Russell Yong gets in touch: “I think focusing on Nwaneri detracts from the fact that any of Arsenal’s outfield bench could conceivably have a case for wondering why they’re not playing. Conversely, any of the starters would feel the same had they not started. It’s a mark of the depth they have, two-deep in every position, with yet more (Havertz, Madueke, Hincapie, Jesus) injured. There’s a lot of football to be played yet; they will surely all get their chances.
“That said, I think there’s a difference between being unduly impatient about Nwaneri and good-faith pondering of his circumstances. He’s been around for three seasons and played a lot more last season, without ever quite giving the impression that he’s trusted to really cement his place in the team, the way Saka, Foden or Messi (to throw out three names of prodigious players who established themselves within three seasons) did. Even allowing for Arsenal’s depth now, it’s natural to hope he doesn’t turn out like, say, Smith Rowe. Peaked then regressed steadily until he drifted out of the team entirely.”
Gyokeres meanwhile has a shot. He looks like he fancies filling his boots.
16 min: Olympiakos have their own Basque in the veteran Dani García, once of both Athletic and La Real. He’s played a couple of nice passes but Merino and Zubimendi are giving him the runaround.
14 min: Arsenal rewarded for their dominance and speed of attack. Gyokeres smashed through Costinha, and Martinelli is full of confidence at the moment.
Goal! Arsenal 1-0 Olympiakos (Martinelli, 13)
An opposition attack breaks down and Arsenal counter, Gyokeres goes away and sets up Martinelli for a goal he gets two bites of.
Updated
9 min: Jose Luis Mendilibar is the Olympiakos coach, and twice a winner of European trophies, the Europa League with Sevilla and the Conference League with his current club. Those were in consecutive years, too.
NB: This was actually the last time the clubs met, during Covid, and with no crowd. Do such matches count?
Updated
8 min: Another Martinelli run, and he’s brought down by Ortega. Olympiakos are asking their opponents on. Tzolakis, the keeper, claims that free-kick with ease from Odegaard.
6 min: It’s all Arsenal. They are all over their opponents. Martinelli is out on the right with Trossard on the left. A winger using his right foot at right wing; it will never catch on.
4 min: Free-kick after a Costinha foul – not the Costinha of Porto legend – though he is a former Porto player. Saliba wins the header but it’s cleared well enough.
2 min: It should have been 1-0. Raya to Odegaard to Lewis-Skelly, and a fine cross. Martinelli’s header is actually off his shoulder. It was all started by Raya’s brilliant pass to set up a sweeping move.
Updated
Away we go at the Emirates
1 min: Olympiakos get it underway but Arsenal soon enough take up possession. Ben White soon joins the attack as an overlapping full-back. Feels like it’s been a while.
NB: Max Dowman *is* on the bench, and could become the youngest ever Champions League player.
There’s just been a short memorial to poor Billy Vigar, the former Arsenal player who died last week.
Charles Antaki gets in touch: “Yes, no rush. Arsenal fans remember starlets who looked terrific and got the pulses going, only for the sparkle to fade (Charlie Patino) or injuries to rub it out (Krystian Bielik), or just regression to the mean to take over (many, many others). Nwaneri and Dowman’s prospects will be all the firmer for being eased into it.”
Bielik was a decent player for Birmingham and is now at West Brom. Patino is at Deportivo La Coruna, though sadly not a Diego Tristan, Djalminha and not the superb Juan Carlos Valeron quality of team. They’re in the Segunda.
Olympiakos have another familiar face with them: Edu is alongside President Marinakis, as Ange Postecoglou, among others, terms him.
Zach Neeley asks: “Why rotate so much but leave Nwaneri on the bench? In scientific terms, he is very good.”
I suppose Arteta is being careful. Which means Max Dowman fans may have to wait a while yet.
Mikel Arteta spoke to the media at a pre-match news conference at the Emirates on Tuesday.
“We have the same ambition - to go game by game and try to be better than the opponent, which is very difficult in this competition. We want to win as many games as we can. Tomorrow is going to be a really difficult one. We know how important the home form is going to be to reach the phase we want to.”
“What I want with this football club is to win major trophies. Nobody else has to put that line to us. That’s the ambition. Excuses have never been a part of my life.”
Will Arsenal get caught out by those changes? As Jonathan Wilson points out, they have flaws.
Arsenal have over the past couple of seasons become a side with a tendency to get down on themselves, to react badly to misfortune or adversity; that happened to an extent at St James’ as early momentum was lost, but they still had enough to claim the win. Certainly the table looks – and the mood feels – very different now to how it would have done without the late goals in their last two games.
Big words from Arsenal’s key defender: “I cannot leave this club without giving them something back. I’ve won nothing so my first choice was to stay here and win everything first. Every year we’re getting better. This year, we had a lot of experiences from the last three seasons. We know that we’re always close, always close. Now we know how the Premier League is. We know how the Champions League is.
“So we have to stop talking and prove on the pitch that we have to win. Of course, it’s good to talk, but now we have to prove it on the pitch that we are ready to win.
Mikel Arteta has seriously rotated his Arsenal team, Buyako Saka and Eberechi Eze benched. Ben White and Myles-Lewis Skelly at full-back, Mikel Merino, the goal machine, in midfield with fellow Basque Martin Zubimendi. Gabriel Martinelli – “the finisher” – is a starter. Leandro Trossard gets played a lot these days. Jurrien Timber, Riccardo Calafiori and Declan Rice
The teams
Arsenal: Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly, Zubimendi, Merino, Odegaard, Trossard, Martinelli, Gyokeres. Subs: Arrizabalaga, Setford, Mosquera, Saka, Eze, Timber, Norgaard, Nwaneri, Calafiori, Rice, Dowman
Olympiacos starting XI: Tzolakis, Ortega, Pirola, El Kaabi, Gelson Martins, Dani Garcia, Costinha, Chiquinho, Hezze, Restos, Podence. Subs: Paschalakis, Kouraklis, Biancone, Kalogeropoulos, Sciponi, Strefezza, Onyemaechi, Pnevmonidis, Mouzakitis, Taremi
Updated
That last meeting was five long years ago.
It was followed by a panic we’d all rather forget.
Preamble
The games are coming thick and fast for Mikel Arteta and Arsenal. How will they react to that late win at Newcastle, where a great deal of psychic energy was expended. The aim in the expanded group stage is to get the job done fast, and follow up last time’s defeat of Athletic Club to make it two wins from two. Olympiakos are a familiar adversary. The two have met 12 times, winning six each. They also have a familiar owner in the figure of Evangelos Marinakis.
Kick-off: 8pm UK time. Join me.
