Premier League: Chelsea striker isn't done with Arsenal counterpart

Diego Costa's 2015/16 hasn't been at the same consistently high standard as his fantastic 2013/14 farewell to Atletico Madrid or his similarly stellar 2014/15 introduction to Chelsea, but one of the Premier League title race's protagonists would have trouble believing that.

The scrappy striker was the defining figure in both of Arsenal's meetings with the champions as they were twice beaten without scoring. The points lost in those showdowns are the difference between the Gunners being three points behind Leicester in third, as is currently the case, and three clear at the top.

Arsene Wenger was furious, making the I'm-not-directly-accusing-but-you-know-what-I'm-getting-at post-match observation that "Costa has got two of our players sent off in the last two games against Chelsea". However, the man hurt most by the 27-year-old's contribution was Wenger's compatriot Olivier Giroud.

The France forward was controversially hooked off for centre back Gabriel with less than a quarter of the contest complete following Per Mertesacker's red card for bringing down Costa. While the supposedly-not-fully-fit Arsenal forward stewed over being robbed of his opportunityto affect such an important encounter for his side, his counterpart seized his, scoring the winner a minute later.

That took the Spain international to eight Premier League goals for the campaign - a number that doesn't sound too impressive until you realise that five of them have arrived in as many appearances under Guus Hiddink.

So though the gap of eight to Jamie Vardy at the top of the charts and even the five-strike deficit to Harry Kane and Riyad Mahrez in joint-fourth seems vast, none of those guys are averaging close to a goal per outing right now, and 15 games is plenty for Costa to climb to fourth or higher, as he was recently backed at 4.50 to do.

If the Blues attacker does break into the top four, Giroud will almost certainly be one of the victims. The Frenchman is presently joint-sixth on 12 goals, one shy of where he needs to be for a payout in the market, and four ahead of the division's most divisive number 19.

Yet the former Montpellier net-finder has fired blanks in five of his last six Premier League fixtures, being outscored 5-2 by Costa since Christmas despite playing a match more, which shows that it won't take a superhuman effort for the latter to cancel out the final four in 15 remaining attempts.