From the ruins of Unai Emery’s calamitous first half of the season Mikel Arteta continues to build something special.
Not only are his Arsenal side unbeaten this calendar year, they are finally winning on the road and keeping clean sheets.
What is the world coming to?
Arteta is reaping the benefits of Freddie Ljungberg’s decision to promote 18-year-old Bukayo Saka to the big time. Yet again he provided a touch of class.
Last Sunday he teed up Nicolas Pepe for a sumptuous second in a 4-0 win over Newcastle.
Here, nine minutes from time against Olympiakos, the youngster cushioned a delicious ball into the six-yard box for Alexandre Lacazette to bag only his second goal away from home this season.
(Image: Getty Images)
Emery was sacked in November after a seven-game winless run was capped by defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt in this competition.
Arteta’s sent his side out here with orders – particularly to his younger players – to be brave and defy the intimidating atmosphere. They delivered.
And that was against an Olympiakos team who went into the tie with just one defeat all term on their own patch and in no mood to let Arsenal embarrass them.
But Arteta’s men followed the instructions of their boss to triumph in the heat of battle despite the wall of sound at the 32,000-seater Karaiskakis Stadium threatening to engulf them.
(Image: Getty Images)
Arteta had promised to pick a strong line-up and made five changes to ensure his first-choice keeper, Bernd Leno, was on the pitch along with his three senior centre-halves and his top two strikers.
It was the right call. Man of the match Mathieu Valbuena tested Leno after just two minutes. The German parried the angled drive and Giorgos Masouras could not get to the rebound.
Masouras and Konstantinos Tsimikas then threatened, with Arsenal all over the place and fortunate to survive the opening 20 minutes.
As the Gunners fought fire with fire – eventually – Arteta may have wished it was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the box on the end of Lacazette’s cross in the 20th minute instead of the other way around. Lacazette was too slow to reach it. Aubameyang would have buried it.
(Image: REUTERS)
Still, though, Olympiakos kept coming and there was relief from the visitors when Leno reacted quickly to prevent David Luiz from turning a cross from Masouras into his own net.
Neither side could continue at this pace and the tempo did drop in a second half during which – for all the cut and thrust – clear chances were few and far between.
That was until Lacazette’s late winner. Arteta’s new Arsenal continue to take shape.
No wonder the fans are excited.
