Olivier Giroud and a Damien Delaney own goal allowed Arsenal to come away with their first victory of the new English Premier League season at the expense of Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

Giroud opened the scoring for Arsenal with a spectacular overhead goal, before Joel Ward equalised for Palace courtesy a clean low strike, which beat Petr Cech at his right.

Arsenal then went back into the lead on 55 minutes as an Alexi Sanchez header, that might have been headed for the far post, was diverted back to the near post by Delaney.

Also Read

Giroud scored the first goal for Arsenal this season, and what a goal it was too as the France international striker, deemed by many to be not good enough to lead the team to a title, twisted his body somehow to catch a Mesut Ozil cross as true as they come to bury the ball into the back of the net.

Sanchez, making his first start of the season, after coming on as a late substitute in the 2-0 loss to West Ham, was his usual livewire self, and perhaps would have scored one goal at least as well in the first half, if not for some not-so-great finishing, outstanding defending and good goalkeeping.

Crystal Palace would make Arsenal pay for those early missed chances by equalising via Ward, who decided to take a chance with a shot from 22 yards and found that bottom corner with aplomb.

Palace nearly went 2-1 ahead as well early in the second half, with new signing Connor Wickham getting in ahead of Hector Bellerin, back after missing the last game through injury, but only finding the woodwork with his shot from six yards off a Wilfried Zaha cross.

Arsenal restored their lead ten minutes into the second half, with Sanchez leaping high to head a Bellerin cross towards goal, before Delaney, looking to clear, struck it into his own net.

Crystal Palace, expectedly, looked to get back into the game, but Arsenal, who also had their fair share of chances on the counter-attack, stuck to their lead to pick up their first points of the season.