Giroud finally announces himself

Before the match, most of the talk was about West Ham’s tall, strong left-footed target man. After the match the talk is very much about Arsenal’s version – Olivier Giroud, who impressed with a goal and an assist as Arsenal came from behind to win 3-1 at Upton Park.

Until today the summer signing from Montpellier had apparently struggled with the pace of the English game – as players coming from across the Channel often do at first – and still looks like a player who is very hard on himself, looking visibly distraught after any missed chance, no matter how difficult.

French journalists on Twitter had said about him that he can take a while to get into a game, and was therefore not an ideal substitute. However, Wenger had understandably been trying to ease him in slowly after a difficult first few games.

But today there will be plenty for him to be pleased with. He started the move that led to his goal, playing it wide to Podolski, and then throwing himself onto the end of the German’s excellent cross. This is the kind of goal that earned him a high reputation in France, and saw him finish as Ligue 1’s top scorer last season.

For Arsenal’s second, he received the ball from deep and drove forward, before playing a perfecetly-weighted ball to Walcott, who slotted home. Despite what you might describe as a slow start to life at the Emirates, Giroud is now level with Podolski and Gervinho in being directly involved in six of our goals this season, with two for himself and four assists.

Cazorla added a stunning third to complete a fine comeback. Arsenal’s skill once again won against Sam Allardyce’s aggression. For a manager who earned a reputation from his Bolton days of always getting the better of us, our record in our last ten games against his teams now reads W7 D2 L1.

It must be said, a lot of this is down to how different a team Arsenal are now. They can now boast to combine their skill and excellent passing with some strong and competitive players. Mertesacker’s return today was a great boost (he should never have been dropped for the Chelsea game) and it’s players like that that make the difference when managers like Allardyce try to use battering rams like Andy Carroll against us. Arguably on another day Kevin Nolan would have gobbled up some of the chances presented to him, but then on another day we would have been playing against ten men and perhaps should have had a penalty. If we got a bit of luck, then so did they. On balance, there is no doubting we were the better team.

Walcott’s goal has attracted more talk about whether or not he should play upfront as he wants to. For me, he’s best when he’s in that wide right position that he found himself in to score today. It’s unfortunate that playing wide means he needs to be involved in more of the build-up play (his undoubted weakness), but at the same time I can’t see him putting in the kind of centre-forward performance Giroud put in today, and that should be the main focus from this game.

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