It is not just the Arsenal centre forward Olivier Giroud that is responsible for putting the ball in the back of the net for the Gunners, of course, and the stats show you that the France international is actually doing his job very well this season when it comes to converting chances.
Unfortunately for Arsenal fans and our dreams of winning the Premier League this season, the chances in the last few games have not been falling to the big man very often. But as reported on the Arsenal website yesterday, Arsene Wenger has declared that he is confident that the goals will soon be flowing, whoever the chances fall to.
Alexis Sanchez has looked sharp since his return and he did provide an excellent assist as well as finishing his goal well on his first start from injury, so I do not think we should be worried about him. But then you look at Aaron Ramsey, Joel Campbell, Mesut Ozil and Theo Walcott and you could easily argue that they are not doing well in front of goal recently and that has ledt the three blanks in a row for the first time in seven years, so is Wenger right to be so calm about our goal drought?
He said, “I felt we were a bit nervous in the last two home games, against Chelsea and Southampton – we didn’t come out of the blocks like we would have liked.
“We played at Stoke, we played a 0-0 what was not a shame because they are quite strong at home. Against Chelsea we played with 10 men and that makes the game against a good side very difficult.
“Against Southampton, we created the chances and couldn’t finish them off. I believe overall, we should not be alarmed, because the quality of our performance was there in every single game.
“We should take a lot of encouragement from that, even if sometimes in the recent games, we didn’t get the result we wanted.
“We have to prepare without being obsessed with [scoring] – finishing is cyclic and if we create the same amount of chances we will score.”
I have to agree and I think the team goal drought is like that of an individual player’s. It just needs something to kick start the goals again and we are certainly due some luck with the run of the ball. O also think that playing away this weekend should ease some pressure on the players and with only the bottom four clubs having let in more goals than Bournemouth, are the floodgates about to open?