Giroud Is An Exceptional Player

Written by Sam Stubbs-Benbow on 11 December 2015. Posted in Loose Cannon Reviews

Match Review: Olympiakos 0 Arsenal 3 - Champions League 09.12.15

The Great Escape is complete, as Arsenal advanced into the knockout stages of the Champions League. It was a surprisingly straightforward evening for us, as we got the job done with a goal to spare and Giroud bagged his first Arsenal hat-trick. There were some nervy moments and scares, but we were clearly the better team on the night and we deserved our victory.

Wenger made just one change from the victory against Sunderland, dropping Chamberlain and starting Walcott down the right. Olympiakos had the much better start as we struggled to keep control of the ball and the home side stretched us. However, they were unable to fashion anything out of their good start and we grew into the game. We even hit the bar through Flamini, who got on the end of Joel Campbell's cut back, but had his effort deflected.

Eventually our improvement was rewarded with an excellent goal just before the half hour mark. As with most Arsenal goals these days, Özil had a significant involvement, finding Ramsey with a gorgeous pass. Ramsey channeled his inner Mesut and clipped a lovely cross back for Giroud, who adjusted well to convert via the post and the keeper. A lovely goal all round, but limited celebrations from the players as Giroud grabbed the ball and headed for the halfway line.

We controlled the game until half time, but didn’t find the second goal we needed until five minutes into the second period. It was another lovely goal too, this time owing a lot to the work of Joel Campbell. Özil lifted another sensational pass over to Campbell, who controlled the ball and then showed great skill twist and turn before playing an excellent reverse pass to Giroud for the finish.

That score would have been enough for us, but Olympiakos had chances throughout the game and a third goal effectively sent us through. Without it, it would have been a very nervous finish to the game, although you might say it was a slightly fortuitous one. Monreal's cut back was blocked by the hand of an Olympiakos defender, although the defender was turning his back and didn’t know a huge amount about it. It was one of those that could have been given either way, but thankfully it went in our favour. Giroud stepped up and stuck the penalty away for his first Arsenal hat-trick.

giroud hat trick arsenal champions league olympiakos

Giroud polarises opinions between Arsenal fans and those in the media. The only reason for that though, is because he’s not called Aguero or Suarez. The Frenchman may not be the most glamorous player to talk about, but he is an exceptional player. He’s outscored every other French player, including long term Arsenal target Karim Benzema, in 2015 and he continues not just to score, but provide a vital part of Arsenal’s approach play. He doesn’t get enough credit for his intelligence on the pitch, knowing how to adjust his body for the first pass and timing his run for the second. Every single player, apart from the great and glorious Mesut Özil, has faults and has bad games from time to time. For Giroud the bad games get much more attention than the good ones and spark the whole ‘can we win the league with Giroud up front’ debate. I’m not averse to criticising him either, sometimes he deserves it, but more often than not he deserves much more praise for all his positives.

The team performance itself was mostly positive, although the first twenty minutes was a bit dodgy. Once we sorted ourselves out, we attacked well and looked dangerous which is encouraging given our injury situation in midfield and up front. However, our defence is still looking shaky at times, perhaps owing to the absence of Coquelin. Flamini has done ok coming into the team, but without Coquelin we’re certainly not the same defensive unit. Cech is a world class keeper, but there is a limit to what he can do to keep clean sheets and if we give up the same sorts of chances against City then we will concede. That can be the only slight gripe I had with Wednesday night, because the players should be rightly proud with an excellent result that no-one expected from us. Ahead of the difficult Christmas schedule, it was an important result for both short term confidence and our chances of winning the league. Avoiding the Europa League was vital for me and now we can all stop pretending to think it’s a valuable competition. Let’s leave that to Sp*rs, United and Liverpool!

Teams

Olympiakos (4-4-2)
Jimenez, Elabdellaoui (Y), da Costa, Siovas, Masuaku, Kasami (Dominguez 72’), Milivojevic, Pardo (Finnbogason 86’), Fortounis (Y), Júnior (Santos Fortes 77’), Ideye
Subs
Botia, Finnbogason, Dominguez, Salino, Kapino, Santos Fortes, Cambiasso

Arsenal (4-2-3-1)
Cech, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Flamini, Ramsey (Y), Campbell (Gibbs 91’), Özil, Walcott (Chamberlain 72’), Giroud (Y) (Chambers 92’)
Subs
Ospina, Debuchy, Gibbs, Iwobi, Chamberlain, Chambers, Gabriel

Player Ratings

Cech - 8/10 - Made a few very good saves to keep Olympiakos at bay
Bellerin - 6/10 - Struggled to start with, not in his best run of form
Mertesacker - 6/10 - Went diving in a few times, uncharacteristic of him
Koscielny - 7/10 - Covered for Mertesacker a couple of times
Monreal - 7/10 - Sure and steady as usual and won the penalty
Flamini - 6/10 - Not terrible but made some stupid tackles he didn’t need to
Ramsey - 8/10 - Had a good game, topped with a lovely assist
Walcott - 7/10 - Looked a little rusty, but caused them some problems
Özil - 9/10 - Magnificent again, a couple of excellent pre-assists and controlled the game
Campbell - 8/10 - Probably his best game, busy and provided a wonderful assist
Giroud - 10/10 - His first hat-trick and well deserved
Subs
Chamberlain - 6/10 - Didn’t have much to do seeing as we were 3-0 up
Gibbs - N/A
Chambers - N/A

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