Arsenal v Olympiacos, and a look at the front runners so far

By Tony Attwood

So far, just three teams have won their opening two games in the Champions League table: Bayern Munich, Inter Milan and Real Madrid.   

Of the teams who have yet to play their second game but won their first,t we have PSG, Sporting CP, Royal Union SaintGilloise (known as Union) of Belgium, Arsenal, Manchester City, Qarabag and Barcelona.  So after tonight’s game, we can start to get a little bit more information about who might be making the elite eight, which will go through automatically to the knockout rounds and avoid that rather annoying play off round.

So far, the most interesting surprise is that Liverpool lost to Galatasaray.  – a team Arsenal have played three times but never lost to.  We can certainly say that Liverpool have entered the “wobble” stage, if not downright collapse.

Tonight it is Arsenal v Olympiacos – a team that we have beaten six times and been beaten six times by.  Most curiously, the three most recent victories have all been away from home: 3-1 in 2015, 1-0 in 2020 and 3-1 again in 2021.   At home, the last three games against the club have all been defeats for Arsenal.   2-3 in 2015, 1-2 in 2020 and 0-1 in 2021.   So nothing can be taken for granted.

The games in 2020 and 2021 were of course, in the Europa League, while the 2015 matches were in the Champions League.    The opposition are, as ever, top of their domestic league, having played five, won four and drawn one.

And because this is Arsenal, we have an outpouring of negativity from the media, such as “Viktor Gyokeres is Arsenal’s only fit centre-forward at present” from the Standard.   But they do make the reasonable point that with Arsenal playing twice a week (they do at least manage to avoid the note about games coming “thick and fast”), Arsenal might well change the team around.   (Although the report doesn’t note the run of home defeats to this club by Arsenal, when doing so).

So the idea is that Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly were deliberately left out of the starting XI for the league game at the weekend, in order to play in this match (although Lewis Skelly did come on as a substitute).  Nwaneri was left out of the squad completely, which again does suggest a bit of swapping around for this home game..

Their other team suggestions are that “Ben White may come into the defence in place of Jurrien Timber at right-back, while summer signing Cristhian Mosquera could get another start.

There is also some talk of resting Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi, although looking at Oli’s record against Arsenal in London, that might be a risk too far.

In relation to the captain, there are suggestions that Martin Odegaard will play the whole game, as will William Saliba, thus pursuing a policy of reducing the pressure on as many players as possible by not having them play two full games in a week.  Olympiacos are said to have two injuries of note: Roman Yaremchuk, and Lorenzo Scipioni, out with a knee issue.

Today’s opposition’s big triumph, however, was winning the Conference League in 2024, an achievement that puts them alongside such luminaries as Roma, West Ham United, and Chelsea in winning that competition.  Olympiacos also won the UEFA Youth League at the same time.

So we can have a look at the comparative league tables of the two clubs.   Both have collected 13 points, but Olympiacos have managed this while playing one fewer game.   It is also noticeable that they have managed to score one more goal than Arsenal.