FA Cup Replay- Hull City 0-4 Arsenal: 5 Talking Points

Arsenal progressed to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup to face Watford at home at the weekend by beating a dull Hull City side at the KC Stadium. The Gunners were helped by goals from Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott, both of whom scored two each to grant the Gunners a comfortable 4-0 victory, which puts them on course to win a third consecutive FA Cup trophy.The replay was also ravaged with injuries as the Gunners lost three players to injury with both starting center-backs, Per Mertesacker and Gabriel Paulista, having to go off injured. Whereas, midfielder Aaron Ramsey was also taken off after just having come on for 16 minutes.Here are the major talking points from the FA Cup 5th Round replay:

#1 Giroud and Walcott end their drought

The duo brought their goal-droughts to an end

The biggest positive to have come out from the victory is the return to goal-scoring form for both the forwards Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott. The Frenchman was lucky to get the first goal as David Meyler’s charitable defending through a backpass was pounced upon by the Frenchman. The second was a better one as Walcott’s cross was deflected off Maguire and Giroud got there in time to put it into the back of the net through his right foot.

A noticeable feature of Giroud’s performance was that he was fine using both his feet and not just his left, as he has done traditionally. Whereas for Walcott, he got behind the defence to score his first when Campbell found him on the left flank. The second came through a darting run from Iwobi, which was rounded off by Walcott as he beat Jankupovic at his near post.

This means that both the strikers have now scored to break the deadlock of having been unable to score in recent games. Giroud scored after having failed to score in his last 11 appearances whereas Walcott scored after 5 games, having last scored against Leicester City. Giroud’s double takes his season’s tally to 20 goals in all competitions whereas Walcott has now scored 9 goals. The win and the goals should give them confidence ahead of some very important games of the season.