50 up...How Olivier Giroud is quickly becoming one of the most consistent players in the league.

He may not be the most technical, gifted player in the league but Olivier Giroud is turning into Arsenal's and the Premier League's most prolific strikers. Giroud has played 117 games for the Gunners, and on Saturday he netted his 50th goal for the club in the 2-1 victory against Crystal Palace. Giroud has beaten the likes of Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba and Robin Van Persie with the amount of games taken to reach the 50 mark. The Frenchman has been heavily criticised by media and experts, with many questioning if he is good enough to be Arsenal's first choice striker, but Arsene Wenger has stayed loyal to Giroud and how that has paid off.

I believe that Giroud deserves more praise and he is one of the most underrated players in the league, consistently delivering on a regular basis and getting the goals that critics claimed he would never get. He doesn't just get goals, his all round play is crucial to the way that Arsenal operate and engine as a team. Whether it is his defensive work or his overall hold up play when playing as the lone striker, he is becoming one of Arsenal's most important players, and one of the first you expect to see on the team sheet each week.

Since returning from the ankle injury that he suffered in early August that ruled him out till November, Giroud has come back a stronger and better player. He has netted nine times since returning back to the first team, taking his overall tally for the season to 11, and there should be no doubts that he will hit 20+ by the end of the season. The addition of Danny Welbeck has also helped his overall game massively aswell. When both Giroud and Welbeck start, they both work together brilliantly, Welbeck's pace and energy combined with Giroud's strength and aerial threat has improved and made Arsenal's strike force a lot more deadly this season. Not to even forget about the addition of Alexis Sanchez aswell...

This season was meant to be the break through season for the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jack Wilshere, but it is Olivier Giroud who is pleasantly surprising all Arsenal fans and pundits and long may it continue!

 

It's 2015, so let's ban these racist thugs for life.

Chelsea Football Club, one of the most prestigious teams English football will ever witness. But the club is slowly being branded as racist. They have boasted possibly some of the best black players the Premier League has seen, with the likes of Marcel Desailly, Claude Makelele, Michael Essien, Didier Drogba and Ashley Cole.

Tuesday nights events in Paris on the metro before Chelsea's 1-1 draw against PSG, were quite simply unacceptable, ugly and disgraceful. And it is not the first time their fans have been caught in a racism storm. Back in 2012, during an encounter against Manchester United, one Chelsea fan was pictured doing a 'monkey' gesture towards Danny Welbeck, then of Manchester United. Three years on it continues to happen, and the FA, UEFA and even the police have to step up to the mark now and put down a real marker.

We are living in 2015, not the 1980's. For a group of football fans to not allow a man to board a train because he's black leaves me quite frankly speechless. And for these fans to then follow up their actions by chanting "we're racist, we're racist, and that's the way we like it" was almost the final nail in this embarrassing and shambolic act. Now of course not all Chelsea fans behave in this manner, and I guarantee that the majority of them who saw this story first break out would of been shaking their heads in embarrassment for their fellow fans.

This whole shameful act has landed Chelsea in very deep water with all associations, and they also need to make a decisive decision quickly, as the last thing they want is to be labelled 'racists' because at this current moment that is what they are being labelled.

The minority of those Chelsea fans who were involved on that metro will be watching the news and seeing their actions feeling pretty ashamed, and they should be. Their actions were cowardly, shallow and spineless and they have no place in sport, let alone football.