Arsenal – Olympiacos: The big game is on

The League Phase of the Champions League is into its 2nd matchday, and the Emirates Stadium welcomes the champions of Greece. Olympiacos earned a constituent astatine location against Pafos in their opening game, portion Arsenal won 2–0 distant at Athletic Bilbao.

José Luis Mendilibar erstwhile coached Mikel Arteta arsenic a subordinate successful Bilbao’s academy — truthful you could accidental the teacher is facing his… student.

Olympiacos has won 3 consecutive distant games against Arsenal successful London and, successful caller years, has besides beaten Burnley and Aston Villa connected English soil.

Speaking up of the Arsenal match, the Basque manager said:

“We shouldn’t suffer our heads. We person to enactment calm, due to the fact that if we’re conscionable going to absorption connected what the hostile is doing, past possibly we shouldn’t person adjacent travel — we could’ve stayed successful Piraeus. A team’s mentality is important; it has to amusement courageousness erstwhile playing away. It’s 1 happening to spell retired with the volition of defending and not adjacent trying — I anticipation that doesn’t hap tomorrow. I anticipation we play the mode we know, similar we person since I arrived.”

For the Piraeus side, suspended goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis returns betwixt the posts. Rodinei and Yaremchuk are near retired of the squad.

Olympiacos’ travelling squad includes:
Tzolakis, Paschalakis, Kouraklis, Ortega, Biancone, Pirola, Kalogeropoulos, Retsos, Kostinha, Bruno, Nascimento, Martins, Garthia, Scipioni, Tzikinio, Strefetza, Ese, Podence, Mouzakitis, Pneumonidis, El Kaabi, Taremi.

For Arsenal, Martin Ødegaard is available, portion injured players Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke, and Gabriel Jesus are out. Arsenal has been putting successful large performances successful the Premier League this play and looks susceptible of going toe-to-toe with Liverpool.

According to UEFA’s analysis, Arsenal has won six and mislaid six of their erstwhile 12 encounters with Olympiacos successful UEFA competitions, with the Greek broadside winning their past 3 games successful North London!

Olympiacos, connected their part, has mislaid lone erstwhile successful their past 10 European matches (5 wins, 4 draws). However, they’ve won conscionable 2 of their past 21 matches successful the group/League signifier of the Champions League (3 draws, 16 defeats).

They person besides mislaid their past 10 distant matches successful the group/League signifier of the Champions League, with their past distant triumph being a 1–0 triumph implicit Dinamo Zagreb backmost successful October 2015.

Olympiacos’ Moroccan planetary striker Ayoub El Kaabi has scored 5 goals successful his past 2 games against English sides successful European competitions — each of them successful the 2023/24 Conference League semi-finals against Aston Villa.

Iranian planetary guardant Mehdi Taremi played successful Inter’s 1–0 triumph implicit Arsenal successful the Champions League past play — the Gunners’ lone decision successful the League signifier of the 2024/25 Champions League.