Arsenal and Chelsea qualify for the knockout stages

Arsenal needed an emphatic win to leapfrog Olympiakos into second place in Group F and reach the competition’s last 16 and had Giroud to thank for leading the cavalry charge in a 3-0 romp.

Arsenal qualified despite missing seven first-team players, including Alexis Sanchez and Santi Cazorla, but Giroud said their performance had demonstrated their strength in depth.

“We made it so hard for ourselves and no-one really gave us any chance”, Walcott said.

The Gunners were the favourites to crash out of the Champions League as they had to win by two or more goals in Greece to progress in the Champions League.

Arsene Wenger said that Arsenal produced a “perfect performance” in turning Champions League adversity into triumph in their 3-0 win over Olympiakos. We have got the character, the strength in depth to make upsets. Nine times out of 10 you are out [after such a poor start] and we needed something special and we needed a complete team performance, and it was. “Maybe it’s a lucky year for us in the Champions League – you never know”. We needed a complete team performance and that’s what it was.

Made some good runs behind the opposition back-line and took some shots, though could not score.

Ozil again started everything with a clipped pass to Joel Campbell, with the former Olympiacos loanee controlling well under pressure before sliding a ideal pass into the path of Giroud for the France striker to sweep home.

Giroud opened the scoring in the 25th minute and then netted twice more after the break to leave Wenger purring at his display. “We missed the chance two or three years ago and also this year in Monaco so it is nice to go through the group stage as we were not in a good position”.

But after pulling off a great escape, Arsenal should feel confident of overcoming that obstacle as well.

“It took a while for them to overcome early nerves”, says Amy Lawrence in the Guardian, “but once the flickers of optimism turned into a flow, Arsenal constructed the result they deserved”.

Arsenal burst into life five minutes later, though, and went agonisingly close to going in front. “That is not easy because [Olympiacos] are a good side”.

However, the visitors were not to be denied four minutes later, as Nacho Monreal whipped a fine ball into the box for Olivier Giroud to head home at the near post.

After what was a slow start to the match, Giroud headed in his first from an Aaron Ramsey cross just before the half-hour mark to lift his side and the travelling support.