Olivier Giroud’s high work rate and ability to “smell” situations have been key to the striker’s impressive form this season, according to his Arsenal teammate and compatriot Laurent Koscielny.
Giroud, 29, has scored nine times in his last 11 club appearances, including a vital Uefa Champions League hat-trick at Olympiakos and a twice against Liverpool in the Premier League.
In total, he has scored 18 goals in 32 games in all competition this season and Koscielny stressed the forward gives much more to the team than just those goals.
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“He’s so massive and that’s one of the best qualities for a striker. When he can play like this, with one or two touches and staying in the box, which is where we want him, we can score in the air,” Koscielny told the club website.
“I think Olivier has a work rate for the team which is very high. He’s not just a forward, he’s always there for free-kicks or corners against us.
“You can see now that he smells the situations well — when he needs to shoot quickly, or control the ball, like he did against Liverpool with his second goal.”
Arsenal continue their FA Cup defence hosting second tier side Burnley on Saturday and take on Southampton on Tuesday hoping to improve their third position in the Premier League table.
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What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
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