Arsenal booked their place in the quarter-finals of the Europa League despite a 1-0 defeat at home to Olympiakos.
The Gunners came into this game with a 2-0 lead from the first leg and Youssef El-Arabi’s 51st-minute strike wasn’t enough to take the Greek outfit through to the next stage of the competition.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta decided to bring Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang back into the starting lineup after dropping him in the North London Derby as a punishment.
However, the Gunners showed little improvement going forward despite having their star striker back and Arteta will not be happy with the performance of his players tonight.
The Gabon striker missed two excellent opportunities to add to Arsenal’s advantage and the Londoners will have to improve their quality and composure in the final third if they want to establish themselves as one of the contenders for the trophy.
The Londoners lacked control and dominance in the centre of the pitch and Arteta’s decision to rest the likes of Thomas Partey and Martin Odegaard will be responsible for that.
On-loan midfielder Dani Ceballos was given an opportunity to impress here and the Spaniard showed his quality in bursts.
Meanwhile, goalkeeper Bernd Leno produced a couple of important saves to keep the score at 1-0.
The Arsenal manager decided to bring on the likes of Odegaard and Partey after conceding early on in the second half but the Gunners failed to turn the game around and ended up on the losing side.
Striker Alexandre Lacazette was dropped to the bench for this game and the fans will be surprised to see that Arteta did not fall upon the Frenchman despite being 1-0 down throughout the game.
Olympiakos defender Ousseynou Ba was sent off after picking up his second yellow card of the game for dissent on the 82nd minute but the home side failed to make the advantage count and score the equaliser.
