Alexis Sanchez hit a brace as Arsenal secured a 2-0 victory over relegated Sunderland in front of a sparsely populated Emirates Stadium to keep alive their dwindling hopes of Champions League qualification. Get the full report and reaction.
The Gunners needed to beat David Moyes' men to take the battle to finish in the top four of the Premier League down to the last day of the campaign.
They made heavy weather of their task, with Sanchez scoring a close-range double inside the final 17 minutes to secure the points with a 2-0 win.
Under-fire Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has never finished outside of the top four in a full season at the helm but despite this win, and even though it remains mathematically possible, the club look set for a Europa League campaign next year.
Manchester City's victory over West Brom means Arsenal need to beat Everton on Sunday and hope Liverpool slip up at home to Middlesbrough to gate-crash the top four.
Wenger's own position still remains a mystery as he has yet to announce if he will sign a new deal to remain at the club beyond the FA Cup final meeting with Chelsea in two weeks' time.
A lot of the home fans who stayed away from this clash did so in protest against Wenger remaining in charge - those who opted to attend were left short-changed.
Some supporters opted to stay away for other reasons but the official attendance of 59,510 was certainly wide of the mark, with Arsenal recording tickets sold rather than the figure who attended.
Arsenal thought they were ahead early on but saw a goal correctly chalked off as a Sanchez shot hit Giroud on the arm as it flew past Jordan Pickford in the visitors' goal.
Moments later the young Black Cats goalkeeper, who has been linked with a move to the Emirates, did well to keep out a genuine Giroud strike as the France striker found himself free in front of goal.
Despite camping out in the Sunderland half, Wenger's side had few clear-cut chances after his early save from Giroud and it was his counterpart Petr Cech who had to dive low to stop Didier N'Gong scoring against the run of play.
Hector Bellerin hit the side-netting after bursting into the box and the half ended with Pickford tipping an Aaron Ramsey strike behind.
The second half began in farce for Arsenal as Nacho Monreal's overhit backpass was scrambled behind by a back-tracking Cech, resulting in an indirect free-kick for Sunderland.
Shkodran Mustafi saw a header hacked off the line as Arsenal reached the hour-mark without breaking through, with Giroud glancing a header wide as the game wore on.
Wenger threw on Danny Welbeck and Alex Iwobi but the former was again kept at bay by Pickford, who turned a low strike behind.
Sanchez finally opened the scoring soon after, converting an easy chance from in front of goal as Ozil crossed from a pinpoint Xhaka pass.
The Chilean had been on the periphery but hit the crossbar with a cheeky lobbed effort, with Pickford again on hand to deny Xhaka and Iwobi in spectacular fashion.
Pickford was powerless to prevent Sanchez doubling the lead with nine minutes remaining, parrying Giroud's flick into the path of the former Barcelona man, who headed in to seal the victory.
Mustafi had a late header brilliantly turned on to the bar by Pickford but Sanchez had once again provided the heroics to keep Arsenal's league campaign alive until the final day.
Post-match reaction
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is "quite surprised" at the significance placed on finishing in the top four.
Arsenal must now rely on either Middlesbrough or West Ham to thwart Liverpool and Manchester City respectively to have any hope of qualifying for the Champions League, but the Frenchman does not believe his side need a minor miracle.
Wenger said: "No, you never know.
"But anyway, I answered for 20 years the question, 'the top four is nothing special'. So I don't know why suddenly it could become such a big problem.
"I'm quite surprised. I want to absolutely make sure that we are in there but after that let's get to 75 points and see what happens.
"You want all the teams to fight like Sunderland did tonight. After, you have to accept the result. What is for sure, if we win our game, we can only be far from one point. Let's give ourselves every chance."
Meanwhile, Sunderland manager David Moyes believes Wenger's comments on teams 'going on holiday' was an insult to football.
Earlier this week, in response to West Ham's performance during their 4-0 defeat to top-four rivals Liverpool, Wenger claimed that "some teams turn up, some go on holiday", but Moyes insists that is doing a disservice to clubs.
"I think that's an insult to football as I've been a player myself," Moyes said.
"I would hate it if anyone would question me if I was going to chuck a game away. We didn't play well on Saturday, we know that but I think you can see Sunderland had a go, tried to score at times but we were outclassed by a better football team.
"The teams have too much pride, the players have too much pride, every game matters, whatever team you support or whoever you play for, you play for the jersey, and would hope every player would do that.
"I thought the team showed great character, we set up to try and make it difficult for Arsenal and for long periods we did do but not only that but we created opportunities and the players worked really hard.
"If we got the first goal tonight maybe we would have got something to hold on to."