Olivier Giroud has been praised by Laurent Koscielny for responding well to being benched for Arsenal at the start of season, and says his teammate's combination of size and technique make him an unplayable striker at times.
Giroud is Arsenal's leading scorer with 18 goals in all competitions this season, despite seeing Theo Walcott become Arsene Wenger's preferred striker at the start of the campaign.
The France striker regained his starting spot after Walcott was injured, and Koscielny says his compatriot is having his best season yet with the Gunners.
"This season, he didn't start well because he stayed on the bench for a long time because Theo was in good form up front," Koscielny told the club's official website.
"He just came on the pitch for 20-25 minutes, but he scored some goals. And he continued to work during training, he fought a lot and was just on target to score goals.
"When you don't play a lot for your team you have to come back with your work rate, and he worked a lot. After he came back and he played full games, he scored some goals."
Giroud has 12 goals in the Premier League, including two in a 3-3 draw at Liverpool, and scored a vital hat trick against Olympiakos in the Champions League to send Arsenal through to the knockout stages.
But Koscielny believes Giroud's qualities as a target man and link-up player have been equally important to the team's style of play, saying: "When he plays simple, he's the best.
"He's tall, he's big and when you try to find him and he keeps the ball, no defender can pass him. He's so massive and that's one of his best qualities for a striker.
"When he can play like this, just with one or two touches and staying in the box -- because we want him in the box, it's in this zone we can score."
Koscielny said that as Giroud's confidence has grown this season, his nose for goal has improved as well.
"You can see now he smells the situation well, when he needs to shoot quickly or control the ball like he did against Liverpool with the second goal," he added. "He's in good form this season, I hope he will stay like this until the end of the season."