Olivier Giroud, Jack Wilshere combine for a beautiful (and nostalgic) Arsenal goal

Henry Bushnell
·Senior soccer reporter

Exactly four years ago today – Oct. 19, 2013 – Jack Wilshere and Olivier Giroud (and Santi Cazorla) combined for one of the greatest team goals the Premier League has ever seen.

Six touches. Five one-touch passes. One one-touch finish. A work of art.

Four years later, the mighty have fallen. Giroud is no longer Arsenal’s first-choice striker. Wilshere’s wayward career has been an odyssey filled with roadblocks, many of them of his own making. Cazorla is 32 and injured.

But Wilshere and Giroud are still around, and still good enough (but also bad enough) to start in Arsenal’s Europa League match Thursday against Red Star Belgrade. And with the game locked in a stalemate with five minutes remaining, the two (and Theo Walcott) teamed up for a winner that should provoke all kinds of weird Arsenal nostalgia.

Four touches. Three one-touch passes. One one-touch finish. Not quite the goal from four years ago, but a work of art in its own special way.

Oh, and a special finish from Giroud. Let’s not forget that.

Olivier Giroud somehow found the back of the net from this position. (@FoxSoccer on Twitter)
Olivier Giroud somehow found the back of the net from this position. (@FoxSoccer on Twitter)

That the two goals were scored precisely four years apart, though, is all kinds of freaky.