Four goals for Giroud in one week!
There is no Arsenal player that attracts more criticism than Olivier Giroud, despite his excellent scoring record, but surely he will have silenced his doubters with his performances this week. Not only did he get his first ever hat-trick as the Gunners executed the great escape in the Champions League but he also reached the milestone of 50 Premier League goals for Arsenal when he opened the scoring against Aston Villa with a very cooly taken penalty. Even better, that win takes us to the top of the Premier League!
I think the French striker quite enjoyed it himself as he told Arsenal.com after the game: “I’m pleased with that and I don’t want to stop here,”
“I tried to do a good job for my team-mates today and I did well with the penalty. I was the one who had to take it.
“We were very good on the counter-attack with Theo and Mesut and [got] another clean sheet, so it was a really good day. It is a fantastic week. We did a great job in the Champions League and we really wanted to finish the week with a win and to be top of league before Leicester’s game against Chelsea. It is nice and hopefully we can have a great game against Manchester City on Monday.
“I’m very pleased with the performance today and we are in a great position and even if everything was not perfect, we had a lot of chances today which is good for me and the team.”
Despite scoring on a regular basis, the criticism of Giroud comes from the fact that he also misses lots of easy chances when he is lacking confidence. Hopefully now Ollie can kick on and keep knocking them in against every team we face. Another hat-trick against Man City next week would be nice!
Sam