Arsenal just about did enough to topple Olympiacos in the first leg of their Europa League round of 32 tie on Thursday evening, narrowly beating the Greek side 1-0 away from home.
While it was far from a vintage display from the Gunners, Arsenal achieved a great result, with the only goal of the game coming from Alexandre Lacazette’s late strike.
Before the opener, Arsenal had been fairly uninspiring, with Olympiacos having the better of the chances, and looking likely to hold on for an important home draw. But the visitors had other ideas, netting a vital away goal, and they could have added to their one-goal cushion with just minutes remaining, but failed to capitalise on some good late chances.
Let’s take you back to the start, though.
Olympiacos started the game at a ferocious tempo, putting relentless pressure on an initially shaky-looking Arsenal backline. In fact, within four minutes the hosts could have had a double, but some poor finishing let the Gunners off the hook.
Alexandre Lacazette proved similarly wasteful at the other end not long afterwards, smashing his close-range effort wide following a characteristically flowing Arsenal move.
A big chance. A big miss.
Both sides looked promising going forward, with both Olympiacos and Arsenal seemingly edging closer to breaking the deadlock with every passing minute.
Who would budge first?
Arsenal’s hoard of Twitter bots were desperate for a little more creativity in the second half, calling on two familiar faces…
But, despite the introduction of Dani Ceballos and Nicolas Pepe shortly after the restart, Arsenal continued to look pretty toothless going forward, and were actually looking less and less likely to open the scoring.
Much to the annoyance of the Arsenal fans.
Eventually, Lacazette found his shooting boots, sweeping home a lovely Arsenal move – courtesy of a gorgeous cross from young full-back Bukayo Saka.
Exactly what the doctor ordered.
That was enough for the Gunners in the end, who take a slim but vital one-goal lead back to the Emirates for the return leg. And, just as importantly, it’s a crucial away goal.
It’s fair to say that the Arsenal supporters were fairly pleased with the result, even if the performance was somewhat underwhelming.
And has anyone mentioned that the Gunners are still unbeaten in 2020.
Oh, they have…
I think we get it.