Giroud the hero for new-look Arsenal
Arsenal's Olivier Giroud said Arsenal "kept the faith" after delivering a late winner in Saturday's wild 4-3 win over Leicester to open the Premier League season.
The Gunners twice fell behind before Arsene Wenger put on Giroud and Aaron Ramey in what turned out to be an inspired double change as both substitutes scored to provide the victory
Giroud got the winner with an 85th-minute header, and he told Sky Sports afterward that Arsenal never doubted they could come back.
"Obviously I knew that I was going to have a chance so we tried to push," he said. "We kept the faith and kept believing in our game to push hard.
"We've been courageous to the end and thank God we won the game."
Wenger said he was happy Giroud decided to stay at the Emirates after having the opportunity to move on this summer following the signing of Alexandre Lacazette.
Alexandre Lacazette's goal - after 94 seconds - is the joint quickest opening goal to a Premier League season
"I love the man and the player. He's a fantastic guy and he's committed," the manager said. "He doesn't want to leave and I'm happy he wants to stay.
"At one stage I opened the door for him as I knew I had many strikers, and in the end he decided to stay.
Wenger acknowledged it would be difficult to give playing time to all of his attackers, but was happy with all the contributions on Friday night.
There was controversy in the build-up to Arsenal's equalising goal for 3-3 with a handball before Aaron Ramsey's strike
"Going forward and character wise we have been great. We had some avoidable goals which we conceded and overall we have to work on that," he said.
"It's impossible to keep them happy when strikers don't play. We have many games and hopefully I can give games to all the strikers. They all deserve to play."
Petr Cech has seen better days after conceding three goals, and he said Leicester did well to pounce on Arsenal's errors.
"We started really well and I thought we could stay in control. Then we made mistakes and they punished us," he said. "They had chances and then we had to chase.
"There were difficult moments when we were down and we managed to get out of that and it's great to see."
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