If you forget about the recent losses at the Emirates against Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea, it’s been a very good start to the season. We’re top of the Premier League, spent big money on a genuinely world-class player in Mesut Ozil and have a good chance of getting through our group in the Champions League, but that’s not all we have to be excited about.
We might still have 29 games to go in the league and half of the group games in Europe to play, but the form of both Olivier Giroud and Aaron Ramsey is very encouraging. Both have scored five times in the Premier League and, combined, have netted 17 times in all competitions. Ozil himself has scored three times in all competitions, but the form of Giroud and Ramsey is more impressive.
Indeed if Giroud were to maintain his current rate of scoring in the Premier League he would finish with 20 goals and only 3 players managed to exceed 20 in 2012/13
Finally settling in
Ramsey’s goals have been extremely useful, but the fact that Giroud has been prolific in the early stages suggests that he’s finally managed to acclimatise to life in England. Working with the likes of Ramsey, Ozil and Santi Cazorla behind him as Arsenal’s creative hub, he’s been able to take more chances than he probably would have done a year ago.
At the moment, Giroud has scored three less than the Premier League’s current top scorer in Daniel Sturridge. However, there’s still plenty of time to go for him to bag a few, especially against some of our main title rivals. Also, it looks like we’ve yet to see the very best of Ozil, who will be eager to show Real Madrid what they missed out on when they sold him to us a couple of months ago.
On a perch
- A threat to Giroud in race for Golden Boot
Liverpool’s Sturridge is currently priced at 6/1 with Ladbrokes as the favourite to win the Golden Boot, and it’s easy to see why. Against some of the bigger teams, most notably Manchester United, he’s performed really well, even alongside a fellow goal-poacher like Luis Suarez. Sergio Aguero’s just one behind, while Suarez himself is sitting on six goals. In the next 6 weeks we will perhaps find our our French marksman can also scored against title rivals all of whom we play in that period. Ladbrokes have Giroud 5th favourite to be the leading scorer at 9-1 currently.
There are also others to consider like Romelu Lukaku, Loic Remy and even Robin van Persie. For the time being, Giroud will probably be more concerned about helping us get three points against Liverpool on Saturday evening rather than just his personal goal tally. Getting one over on Sturridge and Suarez in the goal scoring stakes might help motivate him though!
Midfield Creativity
The fact is that we now have a midfield that flows with creativity; the signing of Ozil has boosted our midfield massively as someone who can score and assist the likes of Giroud upfront. Ramsey and Wilshire have really stepped up to the mark in both the Premier League and in Europe and let’s not forget that we have Walcott who is due back soon. We have arguably the best midfield in the premier league and this can only favour the likes of Giroud to grab the golden boot.
Guest blog from Rob May.
I don’t think we have the best midfield in England…only one natural 4 isn’t good enough and now that Flamini is injured, it still remains a big hole in our midfield