Match Reaction: Olympiakos 0-3 Bif

Durham on talk sport is doing down our result/performance last night on the basis that its only the last 16 and we should have beaten Olympiacos and Zagreb at home - not to mention that Olympiacos are a bit shit. But this misses the point. We are often criticised for our mental frailty. last night atmosphere in Greece and do something difficult in terms of the scoreline. The fact that we did just that and stepped up when it counted, without so many first team players is a cause for a lot of satisfaction.

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Originally Posted by IBK

Durham on talk sport is doing down our result/performance last night on the basis that its only the last 16 and we should have beaten Olympiacos and Zagreb at home - not to mention that Olympiacos are a bit shit. But this misses the point. We are often criticised for our mental frailty. last night atmosphere in Greece and do something difficult in terms of the scoreline. The fact that we did just that and stepped up when it counted, without so many first team players is a cause for a lot of satisfaction.

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He's a professional WUM, clearly butt hurt.

Of course we should have navigated this group better but only an idiot would attempt to detract from our performance.

I loved it

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Originally Posted by IBK

Durham on talk sport is doing down our result/performance last night on the basis that its only the last 16 and we should have beaten Olympiacos and Zagreb at home - not to mention that Olympiacos are a bit shit. But this misses the point. We are often criticised for our mental frailty. last night atmosphere in Greece and do something difficult in terms of the scoreline. The fact that we did just that and stepped up when it counted, without so many first team players is a cause for a lot of satisfaction.

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Absolutely. That's the key thing which Durham would be way, way too thick to get. We had a hurdle to overcome and this time we jumped it instead of trying to run through it, or bury it, or sell it for a profit. This was what I would call a "crunch" match and we usually lose these and lose them well. Last night was a nice change, possibly and even probably another false dawn but you have to start somewhere. Maybe it will be different this time :doh: :pray:

Having Ozil and Cech in the team makes a huge, huge difference. These are grade #1, world class pros, the type of player we have been missing for so long. It has to be great for a player like Campbell to be on a pitch with Ozil and, when he's fit, Alexis. Ramsey has shown he can step up into that bracket (hopefully he'll do it sometime soon), Kos is getting there too. Such a shame we didn't add at least one more player of that calibre in the transfer window.

Why on earth is Durham even being discussed the guy is pathological in his hatred for our club, I think he got gang raped by those blind Arsenal fans from Day of the Triffids and has been harbouring a dislike of us ever since.

He's not well, do you do him any favour by humouring the delusions as rational critique?

Given our history of qualifying for the last 16, I wouldn't class this as the sort of crunch game we'd usually lose. This was a pressure game but for me this sort of game is similar to when we have to go on a ejn to finish in the top 4 after a bad start.

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Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory

Given our history of qualifying for the last 16, I wouldn't class this as the sort of crunch game we'd usually lose. This was a pressure game but for me this sort of game is similar to when we have to go on a ejn to finish in the top 4 after a bad start.

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Yeah pretty much, which shows really that we set the bar too low

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Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory

Given our history of qualifying for the last 16, I wouldn't class this as the sort of crunch game we'd usually lose. This was a pressure game but for me this sort of game is similar to when we have to go on a ejn to finish in the top 4 after a bad start.

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I'm kind of with you re the fact that we always seem to qualify for the last 16, but this was a crunch game - no doubt about it. Very difficult to have to go away and remain composed enough not just to win (see Monaco last year) but to achieve a particular scoreline. Not to mention with a pretty unfamiliar line up. In fact - I'd say that this was more of a 'crunch' game than those we are more traditionally used to giving this term (eg against 'top 4' EPL teams that have often had the hoodoo over us).

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Originally Posted by Arsene Wenger

Absolutely. That's the key thing which Durham would be way, way too thick to get. We had a hurdle to overcome and this time we jumped it instead of trying to run through it, or bury it, or sell it for a profit. This was what I would call a "crunch" match and we usually lose these and lose them well. Last night was a nice change, possibly and even probably another false dawn but you have to start somewhere. Maybe it will be different this time :doh: :pray:

Having Ozil and Cech in the team makes a huge, huge difference. These are grade #1, world class pros, the type of player we have been missing for so long. It has to be great for a player like Campbell to be on a pitch with Ozil and, when he's fit, Alexis. Ramsey has shown he can step up into that bracket (hopefully he'll do it sometime soon), Kos is getting there too. Such a shame we didn't add at least one more player of that calibre in the transfer window.

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Cech is making a huge dirrerence in terms of leadership. Ozil seems finally to be stepping up to the plate. And re Ozil I would say in answer to people who question why a world class player like him would want to stay at our club - I think it suits him being one of the real go to guys in a decent team rather than one of many Galacticos. I hope he feels that he can achieve greater development with us because of this than he would have done somewhere like Real Madrid - rather than just loving London http://www.express.co.uk/sport/footb...al-Real-Madrid

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Originally Posted by IBK

I'm kind of with you re the fact that we always seem to qualify for the last 16, but this was a crunch game - no doubt about it. Very difficult to have to go away and remain composed enough not just to win (see Monaco last year) but to achieve a particular scoreline. Not to mention with a pretty unfamiliar line up. In fact - I'd say that this was more of a 'crunch' game than those we are more traditionally used to giving this term (eg against 'top 4' EPL teams that have often had the hoodoo over us).

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I'm not so sure. When it comes to salvaging a campaign we usually rise to the challenge. It's like us always making the top 4 each year. If this were a last 16 game like Monaco or a game in the league where we have a chance to go top or build a lead, I'd see things differently. I wouldn't say crunch games are just about beating the top teams, the last few weeks where we have had a chance to go top of the league but dropped points; those were crunch games in my opinion. It's partly why I don't see this result as anything out of the norm for us and just another example of our inconsistency.