Oliver Kay in The Times:
Of all the indignities suffered by Barclays Premier League clubs on the European stage over recent seasons, none has been quite so shocking as Arsenal’s calamitous defeat last night by a club whose previous record on English soil was: played 12, lost 12. To lose at home to Olympiacos would be worrying in any situation. To do so on the back of defeat by Dynamo Zagreb, with Bayern Munich up next, made it even worse.
Arsène Wenger and his team had little, if any margin for error, yet what followed was a series of serious errors, starting with the selection of David Ospina rather than Petr Cech in goal.
In a tetchy post-match press conference, Wenger called the result an in-justice and said the debate over Ospina’s selection — rather than the selection per se — was a farce. He preferred to point to the minute of madness that led his team to concede the winning goal to Alfred Finnbogason only 59 seconds after Alexis Sánchez headed the equaliser.
David Hytner in The Guardian
Arsène Wenger angrily defended his decision to start David Ospina ahead of Petr Cech in Arsenal’s 3-2 Champions League defeat at home to Olympiakos, which has jeopardised their hopes of qualification to the knockout phase, saying it would be a “farce” to blame the goalkeeper.
Ospina dropped a corner into his own net to hand the Greek champions a 2-1 lead and, in general, failed to instil confidence in his backline.
Wenger signed Cech from Chelsea for £10m in the summer and, at the time, it was expected that he would play him in the Champions League. The manager, though, started Ospina in the opening Group F loss at Dinamo Zagreb and he retained faith in him for the visit of Olympiakos.
Myles says:
There was a crazy rumour circulating at the Emirates after this debacle.
So wild that I’m reluctant to repeat it : that Ospina has a clause in his contract that says he has to play in all the Champions League games.
That can’t be right can it? Complete rubbish!