Our French striker Olivier Giroud scored his first ever hat-trick for Arsenal as we beat Olympiakos to reach the knockout stages of the Champions League, and he has now scored 13 goals from just 15 starts in this campaign.
At the end of the transfer window Arsene Wenger had ignored all calls to buy a new striker to compete with Olivier because he believed that Theo Walcott could step up to the centre-forward role and the ruse was working fine until Theo got injured. Now he is back and Matthieu Flamini believes that having the Englishman waiting in the wings has given Giroud the impetus to up his game.
I think competition is very important in the big teams,” Flamini told the Guardian.”Competition makes players stronger and that is what happened [to Giroud]. It is tough competition up front and Olivier is responding very well because he is playing better and better.
“That is part of the game and if you want to play at a big club, you have that competition. All great strikers have to respond in the big games and he responded well.
“It was a great performance [against Olympiacos] from him and he helped the team very much and is a top scorer. He deserves the credit and I think he gets it.
“I have not seen it anywhere or from anyone that he is not a top goal-scorer and he is proving it on the pitch so he is doing very well. I am glad and happy for him.”
Not as happy as Arsenal fans! We were all sure that Wenger had made a mistake in the summer by not bringing in a world-class striker, but Le Prof stuck to his guns and believed in our two Number Nines. I think that this time around we can definitely say that Arsene Knows Best!