Goalless draw boosts Giroud’s top Premier League scorer hopes
Published:Oliver Giroud may not have scored on the opening day of the season, but 25/1 may still be a big price that he is the Premier League’s top marksman by the end of the campaign.
Giroud was given 26 minutes on his Premier League debut when coming on for fellow new Arsenal recruit Lukas Podolski, but was unable to prevent the Gunners drawing a blank in a 0-0 with Sunderland.
However, what is interesting is that the top goalscorer in three of the last five Premier League seasons was also involved in a goalless draw on the opening day.
Most notably, Robin Van Persie took an age to get going last season for Arsenal, having only managed one Premier League goal by September 24th.
Arsenal will be hoping that Van Persie’s heir does not take quite so long to find his shooting boots and his added physical presence could lead to a first start in Arsenal’s next outing away at Stoke.
Carlos Tevez was another to fail to score on the opening day in an entertaining 0-0 draw on the opening day with Tottenham in 2010, while Cristiano Ronaldo was unable to help Manchester United break down Reading in 2007.
Things quickly got worse for Ronaldo when he was sent off in Manchester United’s second game at Portsmouth and it was not until September 29th that he opened his account for the season at Birmingham.
The fact that Van Persie and Ronaldo were far from prolific in the early part of their seasons as top scorers may also mean that punters should not be put off backing Sergio Aguero for the accolade in the present campaign.
It is believed as a worst case scenario that Aguero will be out for a month after injuring a knee against Southampton and as a result he has drifted to 9/1 to be the Premier League’s top scorer.
But he may be back sooner and given that he top-scored for the champions last season, he should not be written off.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
