Arsenal 2-3 Olympiacos: David Ospina's calamitous mistake helps Greek giants earn shock Champions League victory

 

They trooped out wordlessly. Silent, stunned. ‘Highlights on the big screen,’ cried the stadium announcer. ‘Yeah, let’s all stay for that,’ growled one of the locals, breaking the uneasy peace at last.

Normally, a result such as this would provoke an outpouring of rage. Sometimes, the shock itself is just too great.

 

Arsenal knew they had their work cut out with Bayern Munich in Group F. They convinced themselves that Zagreb was a tricky place to go and defeat in the first game was no disgrace. But this?

Here was Arsenal’s banker, their three points in the bag. It is Munich next, home then away. There is every likelihood they could be out of the competition altogether come the first week of November. How is a team that cannot extract a point from Olympiacos and Dinamo Zagreb meant to fare any better against the form team in Europe right now?

 

And the form striker. Robert Lewandowski is red hot, in a different league to the players Arsenal found impossible to repel on Tuesday. Will Arsene Wenger admit he was wrong and at least pick Petr Cech in the next match?

 

He can be very stubborn these days. He still thinks there is little better beyond his squad, despite all evidence to the contrary. He cannot keep losing to inferiors while insisting this, right here, is as good as it gets.

 

Twice Arsenal went behind and twice they drew level. The third goal killed them but most worrying for Wenger is the ease with which Olympiacos scored after the equalisers. Arsenal 1 Olympiacos 1 lasted five minutes. Arsenal 2 Olympiacos 2 stood for 59 seconds.

 

This is arguably Wenger’s poorest result as Arsenal manager in the Champions League. Losing at home to Manchester United in 2009 was bad news, but it was at least a semi-final. Last year’s defeat by Monaco took the English game by surprise — a disturbingly familiar feeling these days — but, again, it was at the knockout stage.

 

This, a group game considered such a formality there were empty spaces dotted around the Emirates, is a fresh level of humiliation.

 

Olympiacos have never won a Champions League game in England, and were on a run of 12 straight defeats here; it was 1976 that a Greek team last scored three goals on these shores, AEK Athens against Derby County. Even by Greek standards that has the ring of ancient history.

 

Yet here we are. Arsenal in disarray with League leaders Manchester United up next. In all likelihood, there will be no Laurent Koscielny for that fixture, too. He limped off midway through the second half, replaced by Per Mertesacker.

 

Yet not even Arsenal’s big effin German could do enough to repel the matchwinner, an Icelandic international on loan from Real Sociedad, Alfred Finnbogason. A big effin name, producing a big effin upset.

 

Every little catastrophe was present for Wenger on a truly dispiriting night; missed chances, weak defending, error-strewn goalkeeping and poor decision-making on the manager’s part. Preferring David Ospina to Petr Cech was a fatal decision, inexplicable in the circumstances.