Ruthless Olympiacos hailed

By Paris Ayiomamatis in Athens

Olympiacos CFP coach Oleh Protasov saluted his side's ruthlessness after they emerged from three straight defeats to overwhelm Galatasaray SK 3-0 in their UEFA Champions League Group D encounter at the Georgios Kamaras stadium. "We wanted to get a result, not just put in another good performance," said Protasov. "We owed this to ourselves and our fans."

'Some hope'
Olympiacos are now level with Galatasaray on three points in Group D, but, crucially, have the head-to-head advantage. "After coming off the back of three defeats it was hard to think we had a chance to advance to the knockout phase, but we still have some hope," added Protasov. "But we are definitely in for the UEFA Cup place. Congratulations to my players who did what it takes against very good opponents."

'Fought harder'
"We wanted to win more than them and we fought harder for it," he continued. "We could have scored more goals but I’m happy with 3-0." Dimitrios Mavrogenidis, scorer of Olympiacos's first goal, echoed his coach's sentiments. "We played very well," he said. "But we missed a lot of chances to increase the scoreline."

Sobering note
Olympiacos's high spirits were sobered by an injury-time red card shown to captain Predrag Djordjevic, who will miss the visit to group leaders Juventus FC on Matchday 5. "We'll certainly miss Djordjevic but we'll have to learn to play without him," Protasov said. "We are now obliged to win our remaining two matches."

Terim downcast
By contrast, Galatasaray coach Fatih Terim was predictably downbeat. The loss consigned his side to the bottom of the group, but the former Turkey coach refused to concede they could not still qualify. "Everything went wrong tonight," he said. "Olympiacos played better than us as we did not recover from the early goal. We missed a great chance but nothing is over yet."

Deserved win
Olympiacos had raced into a two-goal lead by half-time, thanks to Mavrogenidis's sixth-minute goal and Nery Alberto Castillo's strike before half-time. Galatasaray struggled throughout, and when Giovanni grabbed a third in added time, the score did not flatter the hosts.

'Difficult to recover'
Terim was particularly troubled by his players' lack of concentration after conceding an early goal. "When you concede a goal within the first ten minutes it's very difficult to recover," he said. "Morale suffered and we had a negative attitude, we had a couple of chances and could've scored but it didn't happen. For the last four games we played very well. This was a setback."