Relief for Arsenal after Olympiacos victory

Pat Rice, Arsenal assistant manager
In the first 20-25 minutes we were really at it but after that for about 15-20 minutes we lost our way. We had to knuckle down, fight and get our shape right which I thought we did better in the second half.

It's unfortunate we didn't get the third but we also had opportunities on breakaways in the second half. They came, they waited for us, broke us up in the middle of the park and in fairness they did well. You can't turn around and say we had all of the game because that would be unfair; we are very, very happy with the three points.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain can go inside and outside defenders, he's got that injection of pace and what he needs now is to be consistent in his play. In general [Olympiacos] battled very hard but as we went into the second half we were tighter than we were in the last 20 minutes of the first half. They have actually got a lot of the ball but in actual terms of what [Wojciech] Szczęsny has had to save I don't think there was all that many chances.

Ernesto Valverde, Olympiacos coach
We conceded two goals too early and this had a big influence on the final outcome. We reacted, scored before the interval and had chances to equalise but lacked a bit of luck. My players, despite falling behind so early, performed with confidence and did everything they could to try and overturn the scoreline.

It's important that in such a competition, in such a venue and against an opponent like Arsenal, my team didn't hide and didn't play defensively; they made their intent to win evident from the start. We are satisfied with our performance and hope our fans are proud of the team. The fact remains that we lost the match although I believe that we deserved something more out of it.