Arsene Wenger not sure about the extent of Olivier Giroud's injury

Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Olivier Giroud has an ankle problem but has no idea when he will be back to first team action. The Frenchman has scored in each of his last nine starts for the club, 11 goals in total, and will be a major miss should he be on the sidelines for an extended period of time.

The Gunners are already going through a crisis with regards to injuries, with seven players not in contention for a start. Hector Bellerin, Mathieu Debuchy, Kieran Gibbs, Francis Coquelin, Santi Cazorla, Theo Walcott and Per Mertesacker are all out injured and adding Giroud to the mix will make for a paper thin squad going into a busy period in the Gunners' schedule.

The striker was limping after scoring the goal in the first half and had his ankle strapped during the break but failed to carry beyond 15 minutes in the second period. The north London club came out to win the game 4-0, with two own goals and a final cherry on top by Alexis Sanchez who scored his 14th goal of the campaign, the same as Diego Costa as the highest scorer in the league.

"He has an ankle problem, I don't know how bad it is. But he is being assessed by the doctor. I don't know, but he's limping quite a lot and so I hope it's not too bad," Wenger told Arsenal's official website.

Meanwhile, Wenger attributed the Gunners' slow start to Swansea's work-rate and insisted that once the Gunners got going they did not look back on the attacking front. The Swans peppered players forward in the opening period but it was Arsenal who took the lead through Giroud and scored the second early in the next period to put the result beyond doubt.

"We had some problems to get going but I put that down to the fact that Swansea played very well in the first half. They were well-organised, they put unbelievable work in and certainly the second half we took over and they couldn't follow the pace that we put into the game any more. We were relentless until the end and much sharper in the transitions and more accurate and quicker in our passing. That made a big difference," he added.