Olivier Giroud’s opening goal for Arsenal yesterday was the 2000th scored under Arsene Wenger, and the Frenchman’s 7th of the season.
He’d missed a chance in the first half to put Arsenal ahead, but kept plugging away. Clever movement and some smart use of Per Mertesacker as a shield/propulsion unit, allowed him to nod the Gunners into the lead, and he drew praise from Laurent Koscielny for his contribution.
Speaking after the game, the Frenchman said of his compatriot, “I think he works very hard because he did not play a lot of games in September and October and I think he was hungry.
“He trained hard to be back and to play and you saw him against Bayern, he came on to the pitch and did well. Against Everton as well you saw it was important to keep a positive mentality as a team your team win.
“We have the quality up front to make the difference.”
Koscielny also revealed he got a shout from Giroud which helped him double the Arsenal lead.
“Olivier told me I can score so I shot at goal and it went in. I don’t know what happened behind me but I had the ball in front of me and I scored. I’m happy with it.”
What happened behind him was Fabianski being all Fabianski, which was great, because he doesn’t Fabianski for us.
While I’m basking in another three points, that’s a *little bit* unfair on Fabianski. He did well for us, arguably better than SZCZ. He was voted Swansea’s player of the season by fans and players alike and has generally excelled there. Moving to Wales seems like a really good thing for him, professionally and personally. To my mind, he’s one of the players we’ve had that I don’t feel any opprobrium or negativity towards.
Better than Szczesny? Szczesny didn’t become first choice ahead of him by accident, he earned it because he was a much more solid keeper. I do agree with you otherwise though, Fab seems like a nice guy and I’m glad things have worked out for him.
To be fair he kind of did by accident. Fabianski had a great run as our first choice keeper, making ridiculous saves every week, I remember the 3-0 win over Man City and a game against Wolves when he made some ridiculous saves (he was a liability before that tbf) but then got a nasty injury and Szczesny came in. Obviously he did well enough to keep his place but Fabianski had been excellent then.
OPRROBRIUM or not. The subtle reminder of “Flappy” in there somewhere was fun to watch.
Especially after keeping us out last year.
We no, OPPROBRIUM!!
The Marcelo and Ronaldo of this here team.
Who is their Ozil?
Monkey Bale?
Dude, come on…
Not Ozil.
-Marcelo and CR7 are best buds at Real.
-They enjoying celebrating with each other.
-They also occasionally engage in “bro selfies. “
Seriously, why should we care? This is an Arsenal community, bro!
I don’t either i was just typing stuff on the net.
Giroud-bot? The future is here and it is handsome.
We need a world class striker.
Arsenal will struggle to score goals this season.
Media thinking.;)
Ah, but when we reach the end of the season and Giroud has scored 30+ goals they’ll be telling us that if we had bought a world class striker said mythical beast would have scored at least 50 goals for us. That’s how they will try to belittle our freshly crowned Double Winners. You just know the bastards will find shit to complain about.
It’s not just the media, though. Fans are the same. That’s why I’ve stopped posting on forums these days.
I know I should probably be there to defend my point of view but the inevitable hysteria after a loss (to prove how Passionate you are) and grudging praise after a win was spoiling my enjoyment of the game.
‘Of course Giroud/Walcott scores. He’s playing in front of Ozil and Alexis. Imagine what a real striker could do,’ people write, as if Aguero had to play in front of Tinky Winky and Dipsy.
Its kind of sad that your enjoyment of football depends on what people write on internet forums
Funny thing I remember when we played against Southampton when Giroud scored off Boruc assist (this terrible turnover) because I am from Poland I was aware he did some stupid stuff in the past, and I remember thinking before the game how cool it would be if he will create something out of his craziness for my benefit for a change (he had those collapses in few games for Poland). And he did, Thank you very much. And yesterday same story. I thought that Fabianski usually did for us something costly, and how funny would it be if he would… Read more »
Im always against those sort of challenges being called a foul.
The keeper comes out into the back of an attacker but yet the attacker is the fouler? No thanks. Maybe a case for Giroud from the side, but he was watching the ball, not the keeper, so fair challenge to me.
Think giroud hit more of koscielny then fabianski actually
I miss Rambling Pete 🙁
You haven’t been reading all the news articles then.
me too….
When Giroud’s time with us comes to a close (may it never be so) we can hire Melanie Griffith to lead us on our quest for his replacement.
The 1980’s version of Melanie Griffith in post-apocalyptic garb would be ideal.
To be fair, Fabianski did pretty well, made some good saves. He was fouled by Giroud for the second goal.
It wasn’t a foul, Fabianski leapt over Giroud’s back to try to grab the ball. Giroud had stopped moving and therefore wasn’t backing into Fabianski. The contact was initiated by Fabianski. It was good refereeing to allow the goal to stand.