Olympiakos vs Arsenal Preview, Team News, Line-Up, Betting Tips & Predicted Score

Arsenal’s Champions League qualification hopes hang in the balance as we prepare to take on Olympiakos at the Karaiskakis Stadium tonight.

We head into the game knowing anything other than victory will see us crash out of the Champions League group stages for the first time in 16 years and head into the Europa League.

In order to maintain that record, we need to win by two clear goals or win and score at least three in order to match Olympiakos’ 3-2 victory at the Emirates back in September.

We find ourselves sitting third in the Group F table on six points after suffering three defeats in our five games so far, with the latest coming with a 5-1 drubbing at Bayern Munich last month, but we still have a chance to progress to the last 16.

However, it’s not going to be an easy task as Olympiakos have an excellent record on home soil and have not lost in any of their previous six games against English opposition, winning five.

Three of those victories came against Arsenal and we’ve only kept one clean sheet in our last 12 away games in the group stages of the Champions League, so we certainly have a mountain to climb if we’re to reach the knockout stages.

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Team News

Our task has become even more difficult due to a mounting injury list with Santi Cazorla the latest long-term casualty after the Spaniard was ruled out for up to four months with a knee injury.

Francis Coquelin is also facing an extended spell on the sidelines with his own knee complaint while Alexis Sanchez is back in Chile recovering from a hamstring injury.

Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta, Tomas Rosicky and Danny Welbeck all remain out with long term injury problems but Theo Walcott is back in contention after making his return from a calf injury at the weekend.

As for Olympiakos, they have very very injury problems to contend with after midfielder Esteban Cambiasso returned to fitness last week.

Likely Line-Up

Predicted Score

Olympiakos 2-3 Arsenal: It’s going to be a tense night in Greece and the players are going to have to cope with a fearsome atmosphere, but we have more than enough quality to get the result we need. I’m sure there will be plenty of ups and downs throughout the ninety minutes but I think we’re going to pull this off by securing a 3-2 win which would be enough to sneak second spot.

Betting Tips

Arsenal are narrow 21/20 favourites to win the game but Football Talk can get you enhanced odds of 6/1 on a Gunners win – just click here to take advantage. My prediction of 3-2 is on offer at 20/1 while I also like the look of Theo Walcott to open the scoring at 13/2. If you combined those two bets in a score-cast then we get very tempting odds of 75/1.

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What do you think? What line-up would you like to see start?