 On New Year's Day Arsenal continued the league campaign and played against Premier League strugglers Crystal Palace and won 2–0 – a sufficient way to begin 2017.On 17 minutes Olivier Giroud established the lead in tremendous fashion, meeting Alexis Sánchez's cross and reaching the ball with his left foot from behind his head, hence a scorpion kick which brought the ball off the underside of the bar and into the net – a response originally to Henrikh Mkhitaryan's scorpion goal for Manchester United against Sunderland on Boxing Day.Alex Iwobi scored the second goal, tamely heading the ball towards the back of the net via a desperate attempt by Palace defender Joel Ward to head it off the goal line only to head it onto his own bar, ricocheting it into the net.