Qualification! Fantastic team work, says Petr

Prior to the game you said it was within Arsenal’s strengths to win by two goals and qualify. Were you really that confident?
We travelled off to Greece with a positive mindset. We really were confident and you could tell during the game just how prepared we were.

Was your goal in the 30th minute your key moment?
They were relatively active the first half an hour, but we still managed to get the game under control. The moment we scored, the pressure thinned out evenly. We were the only ones under a lot of stress before the match, but this way Olympiakos realised another goal would disqualify them.

Did you start to count your chickens after you added your second goal?
Not really, but it was an incredibly important one. The fact that we didn’t relent even after that was key. Instead, we scored our third goal. It was then that we knew that was us done.

You could not have wished for a better outcome.
We did what we’d set out to do. We know we had to be assertive and not let our emotions distract us. It was mostly our collective performance which was determinative of the result.

Although Giroud did get singled out to a significant extent.
It’s spectacular that he scored a hattrick. I’m happy for him. Olivier has been scoring really crucial goals all season and had our backs on several occasions. There was quite a burden on him seeing as some of our attackers were injured — a hattrick is an apt reward for his performances.

There was no shortage of superlatives in experts’ commentaries on the team’s form.
I think it was probably our best collective performance of the season. Especially considering the fact under what circumstances we’d flown over to Greece. We needed to win away from home against a team that’s fairly unyielding at home. Plus there was the booming atmosphere. It wasn’t easy, but we deserve an A+. Every single one of us gave it everything they had on that pitch.

You managed to get in some brilliant saves. Which one was the toughest?
Probably the left-foot challenge at the beginning of the second half when we were in a 2-0 lead. Luckily I could see the ball well and was expecting it to curve over to the far post. I also had a bit of a header billiard going there towards the end of the game, but I managed to knock the ball over and away the goal from the line. I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t retained a clean slate, though the qualification is obviously the important part. I’m just glad I could have helped the team.

No one was doubting Arsenal and Bayern would qualify after the initial draw, but it turned out to involve more drama for you than anyone had foreseen.
It’s true we exposed ourselves to a lot of pressure because of our two losses but we made it in the end. We met our goals in the nick of time; now we shall see who’s allocated to us in the round of sixteen draw.

Do you have any preferences? You could face Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético, Wolfsburg or Saint Peterburg.
I couldn’t care less. There’s no choices to be made in the elimination phase. We’re qualifying from the second spot and will encounter one of the winners of the other Groups that are all high-quality teams anyway