Who knows where Arsenal would be in the Premier League table if our France international front man Olivier Giroud had not suffered that freak damage to his Tibia while blocking a clearance in the last minute of our game against Everton in just the second EPL game of the season.
Giroud had just rescued a point for us with a fantastic header when he picked up his injury and the Gunners then had to do without him until he announced his comeback in style with that thunderous strike against Manchester United. Who knows whether we would have beat our old enemies if Giroud had been fit enough to start that game, but the stats on his finishing power this season, reported by eplindex.com certainly suggest so.
His double against Newcastle on Saturday, as well as doubling his league tally, made Giroud’s strike rate an excellent one every 81 minutes. That is almost twice as prolific as Alexis and more than four times better than Welbeck. It is almost on a par with Sergio Aguero and is better than Diego Costa.
Who would have thought that we would be relying on the big man for finishing power, but it is a fact that we were making and missing a lot of chances without him and we seem to be much more efficient with Giroud leading the line. He hasn’t got any Premier League assists yet but is already linking up really well with his team mates and we know that setting up goals is as big a part of his game as scoring, so they will come.
So is keeping Giroud fit they key to success for Arsenal?