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Olympiacos vs Arsenal: Preview, team news & betting odds

By mac14 on March 8, 2021

Arsenal’s focus will turn to the Europa League when we take on Olympiacos in the first leg of our last-16 tie on Thursday night.

It’s been a hugely disappointing campaign overall and our chances of finishing in the top 6 in the Premier League took another hit on Saturday following the frustrating 1-1 draw with Burnley at Turf Moor.

That result has left Arsenal sitting 10th in the table – seven points off sixth-placed Tottenham – so it looks like winning the Europa League is our only realistic passage to playing European football again next season.

After edging past Benfica in the last-32 thanks to a late Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang goal, Arsenal will now face familiar opposition in the last-16 after being drawn to face Olympiacos in Europe for the 10th time in 20 years.

The Greek outfit knocked us out in the Europa League last season so Arsenal will be out for revenge this time around and Mikel Arteta desperately needs a positive result from the first leg on Thursday.

Betting odds

Looking through the latest odds at bookmakers and online casinos shows that Arsenal are the 10/11 favourites to win the first leg on Thursday night and huge 1/7 favourites to qualify from the tie and reach the quarter finals.

Arsenal to win 10/11
Olympiacos to win 31/10
Draw 5/1

Olympiacos are priced at 31/10 to win the first leg at home while the draw can be backed at 5/2 but I think Arsenal will do enough to edge it and put ourselves in a strong position heading into the second leg.

A 2-1 victory for Arsenal on Thursday looks a decent bet at 7/1 and Aubameyang should be in confident mood heading into this game having scored six goals in his last four starts in all competitions so he’s a good shout to open the scoring on Thursday at odds of 7/2.

Team news

Arsenal have no fresh injury worries to contend with. Emile Smith Rowe is the only doubt as he’ll have a late fitness check on a hip injury that kept him out of the Burnley game at the weekend.

Arteta is expected to make some changes from the side that started on Saturday with Hector Bellerin returning in place of Calum Chambers at right-back while Gabriel and Nicolas Pepe are also pushing for recalls.

Prediction: Arsenal like to make lives difficult for themselves and no doubt this tie won’t be any different. However, there have been some encouraging signs of improvement in recent weeks and I think we’ll edge it on Thursday. Olympiacos 1-2 Arsenal