Olympiacos boss Marco Silva, third cousin-in-law on his father’s brother’s side of former Gunner Gilberto, has acknowledged his side are underdogs tonight, but says his team have qualities which can get them a result.
With both sides having lost their opening games, there’s pressure to get points on the board, and Silva believes that although Arsenal will be favourites, his team can spring a surprise.
“We never start the game thinking it is impossible to get a result, we never think that way,'” he said.
“We know it is a difficult game but it is a difficult competition. We know how big a team Arsenal are but we believe in our abilities. We are ready.
“Against Bayern we played well and we were competitive but the result didn’t reflect that. If you asked who would be the top two teams in the group, most would say Arsenal and Bayern, but football is not always like this; there is no rule that says all favourites win their games.
“Zagreb’s result against Arsenal has made things more difficult for us, though.”
He’s obviously expecting a response from Arsenal who warmed up for this one by scoring 5 against Leicester.
However, Arsenal’s defenders should take note that Olympiacos did exactly the same last weekend, hitting 5 past PAS Giannina in a 5-1 Greek Superleague win.
Ha i had my suspicion but didn’t know he was actually related to Gilberto!!
‘third cousin-in-law on his father’s brother’s side’
I’m not sure if you actually bought this..
maybe should’ve finished my sentence with a /sarcasm…
His daughter’s second cousin once removed is married to the brother of David Silva as well.
Small world.
His mother used to do our washing.
I must say Feo is proving me wrong with each game that passes by where he is started up front, and I don’t mind one bit. His performance against Leicester was streets ahead of games like Newcastle where he was profligate in front of goal and generally invisible in terms of our build up play. Olivier may still come to seriously regret his poor showing against Dynamo last week with the silly sending off. Here’s to another dynamic performance from our front line with Theo pulling the defenders around so our other midfielders can cause some havoc!
Pas giannina..some kind of STD is what that is.
Subscriber trunk dialling? I thought they only used numbers for that!
They look confident about this. Do I need to worry!!? COYG!
Since he is my 2nd cousin (our mom’s are cousins), I’ll be sure to ask for an apology after we beat them comfortably at the the next family gathering.
On a more serious note, I am predicting another surprise hat trick hero for today’s game…David OOOOOOOOOOspina!
If there’s one thing Arsenal is good at is bouncing back from a (bad/unexpected) loss.
There won’t be any surprises I hope, only that we win no matter what. COYG!
Somewhat I’m not very fussed about this game just want us to beat manure Sunday. But that’s just me
Both of them are very important games.
Yes; both are important for these reasons:
1. We need to do well in Europe to help preserve England’s 4 slots in CL – I read that we stand the risk of losing 1spot if Italian clubs do better than England this year.
2. We must beat Man U: that is 3 points off a direct rival. It will give us a boost while also helping to halt their run.
Might be an idea to lose the fourth Champions League spot to the Italians and oh how we’ll laugh when Chelsea finish fourth this year.
I will laugh even harder if they get relegated by Chridtmas
This shouldn’t be a lesson we need to “learn’ twice in a fortnight, lets play to our level and win this thing. If we want to finish top of our group we can’t afford any more slip ups.
Looks like he’s related to mauricio pochetino
Jamie Redknob’s dodgy brother.
We’re going to attack deep. Prepare your arse, Silva!