Arsenal reached the quarter finals of the Europa League on Thursday evening. Although manager Mikel Arteta’s team lost 0-1 to Olympiacos, the 1-3 win from Greece was more than enough to get through. Arsenal had more than deserved a defeat based on the odds. AS Roma also effortlessly managed to eliminate Shakhtar Donetsk, by winning the return game 1-2 after the 3-0 home win.
Arsenal – Olympiacos
Olympiacos needed three goals and took the initiative from the start. Yet it was Arsenal that could quickly have taken the lead. Nicolas Pépé outplayed the far-out goalkeeper José Sa, but hit the side net through the leg of Sokratis Papastathopoulos. Almost immediately afterwards, Youssef El-Arabi broke through after a long ball from José Sa. The Olympiacos striker ran into Bernd Leno. On the other side, Arsenal got a big chance for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who shot right in front of the goal.
Six minutes after the break, Olympiacos took the lead. After two paces, El-Arabi took a shot from within the box and saw the ball fall through the body of Gabriel fortunately: 0-1. Arsenal thus had a margin of two goals and did not run into problems in the remainder of the game. The Londoners should even have come back, but Pépé unluckily shot the ball against teammate Emile Smith Rowe, who was on the ground in front of the goal. Aubameyang also had a huge opportunity, but the striker flipped the ball face to face with José Sa wide. Ousseynou Ba took his second yellow card in the final phase due to a push against Martinelli. Arsenal came close to the equalizer, but Aubameyang saw a heel ball be stopped first and shot the bicycle kick in the rebound.
Shakhtar Donetsk – AS Roma 1-2
The first act was no feast for the neutral spectator, although Alan Patrick on behalf of Shakhtar and Borja Mayoral on behalf of Roma were given good opportunities to open the score. There were no goals before half time, but the deadlock was broken three minutes after the tea. Rick Karsdorp showed up and dribbled into the sixteen meter area, and then made an attempt to reach Mayoral. Although Sergiy Kryvtsov initially seemed to intercept the pass, Mayoral still got the leather in front of his feet and the striker finished cool-blooded: 0-1. After an hour of play, Shakhtar did something back when Junior Moraes worked the 1-1 against the ropes on a pass from Patrick, but the Romans would take the victory. More than fifteen minutes before the end, Carles Pérez outplayed goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin and served Mayoral, who scored the winning from close range: 1-2.
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