In far happier spirits than previous weekends so far this 2015/16 campaign, the general consensus in the Football Transfer Tavern on Saturday night was that Arsenal looked back to their best for long periods in the weekend’s end-to-end fixture with Leicester City.
An extremely pleasant game on the eye with Claudio Ranieri’s Foxes also going for it with their expansive style, this ultimately played into the Gunners’ hands in the end whose extra quality told when countering on the likes of Robert Huth and Wes Morgan with Ritchie De Laet and Jeffrey Schlupp often caught up the field.
With Manchester City’s early Premier League lead now pegged back and Manchester United being the team that currently sit top of the table, it is clear that the title race is wide open this term and our Arsenal regulars can only dream of what their start would be like if they strengthened even further than Petr Cech alone this summer.
If the truth be told however, Arsenal are nicely positioned in fourth place right now, just three points off the top of the table while going up against the leaders Manchester United at Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
Consistency is of course key to any title challenge but Arsenal supporters are especially eager to get one over on one of the bigger clubs and title rivals this term considering they’ve only drawn 0-0 to Liverpool and been defeated 2-0 at Chelsea of course.
With plenty more games to be played this season, this still hasn’t stopped us from devising a list of the five best Gunners strikes from the 2015/16 campaign as a whole so far.
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Click on the image below to reveal the five best Arsenal goals so far this 2015/16 season.
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Olivier Giroud vs Crystal Palace (A)
Olivier Giroud has been a man under even more intense pressure following the start of the season simply given the fact that many Arsenal supporters expected Arsene Wenger to be bringing in a new superstar striker this past summer transfer window.
With Giroud having his fair share of doubters and critics amongst the Arsenal fanbase, he silenced them for at least half an afternoon back on August 16th with a sublime scissor kick that beat Alex McCarthy to put the Gunners 1-0 up the day at Selhurst Park.
If ever a player needed a goal it was Giroud and what’s more, coming on the back of the Gunners’ shock opening day defeat to West Ham United at home, this goal relieved a lot of the anxiety and panic that was building up following the Hammers loss.
With Selhurst Park being an extremely difficult and vociferous venue to play at nowadays given the Eagles’ rise to prominence, Arsene Wenger’s men impressively managed to grab all three points in resilient fashion following a Joel Ward equaliser when Alexis Sanchez’s hard work forced Damien Delaney to concede an own goal 10 minutes after the half-time restart.
Alexis Sanchez (2nd goal) vs Leicester City (A)
Arsenal supporters are starting to enjoy when the team play in their gold away kit simply given the fact some great goals have already been scored while wearing it so far this season.
This particular strike from Alexis Sanchez (his second of a hat-trick) on Saturday wasn’t a long ranger or a worldie strike by any means but it makes the cut simply due to the fact that most of the team were involved in the build up with special praise attributed to the assist maker Mesut Ozil.
With Jeffrey Schlupp being forced back towards his own goal as the Gunners broke down the right hand side of the pitch, the ball was cut back to Ozil who floated a deliciously accurate ball into the path of the leaping Sanchez to put Arsenal 3-1 up and in total command of the fixture at a difficult away ground.
Prior to the Gunners’ eventual 2-5 triumph at the King Power Stadium at the weekend, Leicester were the only team left in the Premier League yet to taste defeat and while nobody would’ve ever taken the Foxes seriously in regards to mounting an ‘Invincibles’ challenge this term, everybody connected with Arsenal now knows their unbeaten record is safe for another season at least.
Mathieu Flamini (2nd goal) vs Tottenham (A)
Arsenal supporters had to pinch themselves last Wednesday evening when they saw Mathieu Flamini, yes Mathieu Flamini bag a brace at the home of their biggest rivals Tottenham Hotspur to dump Mauricio Pochettino’s side out of the Capital One Cup at the third round stage.
Naturally going down as the Gunners fans’ favourite result of the season so far, Flamini’s second goal when the game was tied at 1-1 came after Harry Kane had a chance cleared off the line by Kieran Gibbs and this strike really knocked the wind out of Spurs’ sails.
But what a strike it was!
After following in a parried Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain strike in the first half to score his first like an old-fashioned number nine poacher, Flamini took the ball out of the sky to lash a cracking volley past Michel Vorm in the second half to effectively win the game.
The strikes had Arsenal fans kidding that they’d found their new superstar striker in Flamini who if the truth be told, was rubbished by many Gooners as being past it in the lead up to the fixture.
Theo Walcott vs Stoke City (H)
As things stand right now, Theo Walcott is Arsenal’s first choice striker up top and you haven’t always said that about the England international in his time at Emirates Stadium.
Finally receiving an elongated spell of playing up front having hinted at the role for many a season under Arsene Wenger now, Walcott got his Premier League account under way back on September 12th when he coolly dispatched a strike past Jack Butland to put the Gunners 1-0 up after peppering the Potters goal to no avail prior to his opener.
Walcott actually missed a header from point blank range prior to finding the back of the net so it was credit to the player that he remained ice cool while taking his next chance in the game.
His goal came after a simply fantastic sliding challenge from Francis Cpquelin to win the ball back off Stoke’s midfield in the centre circle before Mesut Ozil picked out a wonderful long range assist to meet the onrushing Walcott who timed his run perfectly to remain onside while flicking the ball past Butland with aplomb.
Alexis Sanchez (3rd goal) vs Leicester City (A)
Scoring a hat-trick is absolutely fantastic but it’s even better when your third strike is as good as the one Alexis Sanchez hit on Saturday afternoon at Leicester City to really put the seal on a fantastic Gunners away day.
With the Gunners already winning 3-1 in part courtesy of Sanchez bagging his first two goals, the Chilean capped a fine hat-trick by lashing the ball past Kasper Schmeichel from range having cut in from the left hand side past N’Golo Kante on 81 minutes.
Later on social media, the official Arsenal Twitter account and other media outlets confirmed that Alexis is the first player ever to register a hat-trick while playing in the Premier League, Serie A and La Liga.
