May 15 (Reuters) - Arsenal's difficult season ended with a smile when Olivier Giroud's hat-trick lifted them to a 4-0 win over Aston Villa on Sunday that secured second place in the Premier League table.
Arsene Wenger's team took advantage of Tottenham Hotspur's 5-1 defeat at Newcastle United to finish in the top two for the first time since 2005.
French striker Giroud put Arsenal ahead after five minutes with a neat header from Nacho Monreal's cross and the home team dominated possession.
News of Newcastle's third goal against Spurs caused a huge cheer at the Emirates Stadium and Giroud added Arsenal's second goal 12 minutes from time before completing his hat-trick with a fine left-footed finish.
Mark Bunn diverted Mikel Arteta's shot into his own net in stoppage time as Arsenal finished runners-up to Leicester City, 10 points adrift of the champions.
"You have to say Leicester have had an exceptional year," Wenger said. "It is not only us who is behind Leicester.
"We have beaten them twice. We are not happy about being second but then there are 18 other teams behind us."
Wenger has been heavily criticised during a campaign in which Arsenal led the table at the start of the year and, with their traditional rivals struggling, appeared to have their best chance of winning the league for the first time since 2004.
"Our aim was to be first and for a while we believed we could do it," the Frenchman said.
"We don't start the season and think we want to finish above Tottenham but today we played with the only target we had. Today the aim before the game was to finish second," Wenger added.
"We achieved it, for a while our supporters were not going home very happy and today at least they had some satisfaction."
Arsenal said farewell to two long-serving midfield players, Czech Tomas Rosicky and Spaniard Arteta, who left the pitch in tears to a standing ovation after five years at the Emirates.
"I think Tomas Rosicky is an incredible football player and highly respected in our dressing-room," Wenger said.
"We lose him, we lose Arteta, two leaders in the dressing- room and I am convinced that in the bad periods they had a positive influence in the squad and we will miss them next season."
(Reporting by Ed Osmond, editing by Pritha Sarkar; editing by Martyn Herman)
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