The match against Sunderland on Saturday saw the return of Olivier Giroud which consequently showed why Giroud is missed when he isn’t in the Arsenal team.

An early goal soon settled any nerves arsenal fans had with a neat shot around Vito Mannone after a lovely reverse pass by Jack Wilshere.

This was then followed by an interception of a back pass which Giroud took first time which showed the confidence he had.

Arsenal’s third goal was lovely play but the touch by Giroud to get it through to Tomáš Rosický was class and showed how good Giroud especially if he has runners beyond him.

Controversy

The performance came after a week full of controversy. News broke in the national press that Giroud was having an affair and Olivier Giroud confirmed this with a series of.

It was clear to see that Giroud knew that he had lets the fans, manager, players and his family down but stated clearly he must now focus on re-earning the trust of his family and Arsenal.

No surprises

This all came on the morning of the fifth round FA cup clash against Liverpool so there was no surprise when Giroud was dropped for Yaya Sanogo to make his full debut for Arsenal.

Sanogo showed that he could get physical with the Liverpool defenders and performed well but did show he still is a raw talent.

However, the biggest surprise was that Olivier Giroud didn’t return for the Bayern Munich match. This made pundits sit up and question why this decision had been made with Arsene Wenger claiming Giroud was just having a rest.

Surely you don’t rest your main forward in your biggest game of the season. Again, Sanogo gave everything but couldn’t really be judged when you play with 10 men for 60 minutes.

It then got 14:00 hours on Saturday where everyone was anticipating the announcement of the team which clearly displayed Olivier Giroud was playing. Giroud looked fresh and ready to battle and start scoring goals once again. Giroud now has 13 goals for the season which is better than his 12 in the whole of last year’s campaign.

Justified

Arsene Wenger’s decision seemed to be justified as a full fresh Giroud could be key if Arsenal are to win silverware.  One chant to catch my hearing though and that was of Arsenal fans singing aloud “He bangs who he wants” this just shows the light heartiness of the situation.

I believe that Giroud will now fight for every cause and he demonstrated why Wenger has showed faith in his ability therefore, he now just has to show this in the big games which are all on their way.

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