Three Points from The Boleyn

kT Gooner missed another Arsenal Premier League match as the hotel he stayed in Kuantan while covering a sports event did not have the channel showing the Gunners' match away to West Ham United.

But waking up the next morning to the news of a three-one win was certainly a great way to start the day. With the report stating Olivier Giroud has finally broken his Premier League duck the day should have been a good one.

Well, it did turn out to be a good one.

I managed to catch the highlights later and found out that I was spared the anxiety of watching Arsenal dominating the first half but found themselves trailing to The Hammers' first real attack of the match when Mohamad Diame managed to turn Aaron Ramsey before curling the ball past Vito Mannone.

But at the same time I also missed the excitement when Giroud latched onto a cross by Lukas Podolski to divert the ball home past Jussi Jaaskelainen for his maiden Premier League goal, bringing the score level four minutes before the interval.

The main thing I missed however was the masterful performance by Santi Carzola who pulled the strings in almost all Arsenal attacking moves. He found Giroud with a ball out of defence and the Frenchman released Theo Walcott with a simple pass which the England forward controlled well before putting it past Jaaskelainen.

To cap a good night performance, the pocket size Spanish forward then unleashed an unstoppable left foot shot that completely wrong-footed Jaaskelainen from outside the box after Walcott had brought the ball inside from the flank.

The performance of the returning Per Mertesacker also showed that he provides something extra to The Gunners defence this season.

With the league taking a break due to the international break, I am hoping the winning momentum will continue when we travel to Norwich City on 20 October and two subsequent home fixtures against Schalke 04 and QPR.


...