Olivier Giroud is not the key to Arsenals problems.. He IS the problem by ED
A month or two ago when we were living in la la land, club legend Ian Wright pointed out something during one of Arsenal’s performances that resonated with me, partially because I have never liked Giroud and because he genuinely had a point. He said that “with Ozil on the form he is, Giroud should be doing a lot better than he is at present, not scoring occasionally. He should be scoring every match”, “It is not that often you get a guy who could pump out 16 assists at the midway point of the season”, “I would have loved to play with a guy like him”. I thought about it for a second and every time I used to have an argument with someone who loves Giroud as much as Wenger does, they always told me that if more chances where created, Giroud would be a hell of a lot more consistent than he his…. Fast forward a year later we’re in this position again where Giroud goes barren for a prolonged period and scores goals in minor cluster spells instead of showing the consistency required for a forward leading the side for a Championship chasing team.. but the difference being the chances created this year have more than doubled.
The problem isn’t a lack of chances, its him… referring back to what I said earlier about sometimes being able to produce moments of magic in a game, He’s terrible work ethic, complete and utter laziness during games, wasting chances undermines any of the positive traits he may have. I mean this guy doesn’t simply go missing for a single game, you can forget he is on the pitch for an entire month. What makes it even worse for a guy of his size and stature, he is far too nice to defenders he should really be making most out of the size advantage he has. If you put a guy who is 6ft5 up front, your not there for support I want you to reap havoc, basically do everything Costa does but not be a tw*t about its very much possible.
Giroud reminds me a bit of Dimitar Berbatov, as a matter of fact I am wholeheartedly convinced Giroud is Berbatov in disguise, because he is the only striker I have witnessed who can go more than two months without a goal and finish amongst the top 3 strikers in the Premier League, completely similar in style, both very classy finishers, brilliant hold up play they are also both lazy as hell and occasionally turn up in random clusters of games which 80 percent of the time are worthless in the hopes of winning any silverware, but do just about enough to convince you that they are better than they are.
Of course Giroud will probably score in the final four games of the season (mark my words), have you believing we don’t need another striker when the summer transfer window arrives, in fact he will probably try to convince you he can score 25+ goals (in general), which we can finally put to bed is the minimum requirement for a Centre forward in a title chasing side because as we’ve seen, and the fact remains, no one has won the title and not had someone score that amount of goals or more in a season, at least in the past 4 years. And before you sit there and start calling me delusional, ask yourselves the question when we’ve needed him the most in the past four years where has been? Whilst I accept there was at least a season where injury played a factor in the lack of goals, there is still another 3 seasons to account for, when we’ve been in the run in for the title and he has simply failed to perform.
Olivier Giroud’s Arsenal Career
Premier League
Season……… Apps…….Goals
2012-2013……24 + 10……11
2013-2014……36 ……….16
2014-2015……21 + 6…….14
2015-2016……21 + 8…….12
Total………102 + 24……53
And that, my friends, is why Arsenal cannot win the title with Olivier Giroud….
Eddie D
“The problem isn’t a lack of chances, its HIM”
Ouch!
We can debate if Giroud is a top striker or not. But the problem is much greater we are not scoring goals from anywhere. Teams are sitting deep and narrow knowing Inspector Clueso has no answer.
When we get the ball wide to the byline we don’t cross it and when we do we at best have only one striker in the box. Even our set pieces are so poor we rarely cause any danger.
The only time we threatened Watford is when we played direct getting the ball forward quickly. They struggled to organize and fill gaps. When we play well we play with Tempo and a directness to our play. When I see Mertesacker playing one two’s with the GK I know this is going to be another bad result.
hope the “era of giroud” is over soon. pisses me off so much when i see him up front.
giroud gets a cpl of braces and a hatrick so his goal total looks much better than it really is. and his record versus top teams is woeful.
plus he cant dribble and i havent seen him make a goal out of nothing.
not a pleasure to watch.
Nicholas Bendtner is better than him that’s a fact. He is French what do you expect. Roll on next season to see if things will change, and that I mean get rid of a lot of crap and we all no who they are, Oldies first over 31. CB
There’s always the root of every problem …….. ARSENE WENGER!
Like seriously Giroud pissed me off most times I see him in Arsenal Jersey, I don’t know what kind of a striker that is afraid to hold the ball and face defenders. Like seriously Giroud is one of Arsenal big problems.
The reason he doesn’t have a monstrous goal scoring record is because everyone chips in with goals-Alexis, Rambo, Theo, Dat Guy, even Mesut, not forgetting Santi. Gone are the days were we relied on one player (ala RVP), soo what do u guys prefer-one lethal cf who’s gon be the only one that scores or the whole team scoring? I prefer the latter
seeing as no one scores for us these days
i prefer rvp who scored 37 goals for us in 11/12
outscoring a at his peak rooney an aguero.
i like giroud- but to justify his lack of clinical finishin by saying others score wow
hes not technically adept to be our cf- hes a workhorse- gives alot- but hes no rvp
aubemeyang has 30 plus goals already in a team where reus scores alot
bayern lewandowski gets 30 plus plus several others who score
what were not elite team like them?
really? so what was stadium built for? remind me? lol
everyone knows giroud’s limitations (except perhaps wenger).
we see him in the team and say someone else better should be bought.
but the deluded one doesnt think so.
Other teams shoot given any half chance so get goals while we try to pass the ball into the goal looking for the perfect team goal witch fails 80% of the time and opponents no exactly this will always be are game plan so they easily defend our never changing tactict
I think that if we had a striker of Che City PSG Juve’s first choice quality, we would be allot better off in the table right now. Giroud is good, with great service. wheres the best are great, with good service. And then there are the games when the service is bad, or patchy, Giroud will not surprise in these games. If he hadn’t completely let us down over these latest weeks, I would have given him my biased approval. I cannot do that after the third season, and him saying he is good enough to lead AFC, when the results show us that no actually you are not, makes his effort seem all the worse. Now I’m not saying Giroud is not good enough for The Arsenal, more the case that he is not consistent enough to be the main man.
Giroud is not the best in the world for sure and h doesn’t put every chance away that say ozil assists him with. But let’s widen the idea of blame here for a second shall we..
If ozil scored more, took people on more, scored free kicks and didn’t get l as much in games then we would also hav more goals, no.
If Danny wellbeck had managed to muster more than 12 PL goals since he joined us we would have had more goals…
I could go on but won’t. The point is though is that if the quality of player we put out on the field in each position of the team was better than average; we would have a better team as a result wouldn’t we?
So if your gonna blame anyone let’s point the finger at the man who signs, trains, motivates and retains these players (the average, the permanently lame, the aged).
Then you will be heading in the right direction on your mission to find the culprit and conversely why we never fail to disappoint..
*didnt get lost as much (ozil)
Exactly. To say Giroud is THE problem is ridiculous. Dzeko wasn’t a problem. Skojeskar wasn’t a problem. They were solid role players who backed up world class strikers. The problem isn’t Giroud. The problem is he is the best we have. And you can’t blame him for that.
your comment has such twisted logic-it echoes???
thats actually incredible!
Of course others pitch in, sure that was the case even the Invincibles. Henry Bergkamp Kanu Wiltord Pires Ljungberg. If the best chances are falling to Giroud, well then he should be the one to put them away. Someone mentioned a while back that Ozil must be sick with Giroud sometimes, I told him nonsense, but when chances go begging at the most crucial stage of season, well Id have to be inclined to agree.
Welbeck should lead the line from now until the end of the season.
i have said that girous is the worst striker that arsenal have had since i became a fan in 1968. i have never seen anything so immobile in my life. he reminds me of somebody whose feet are permanently comcreted to the ground .sad thing is giroud actually thinks he is way up there with the best of them .he is the very worst striker in the history of our club in my opinion . he has nothing whatsoever going for him. at best , on his day , he is merely a championship player , and i am being generous here.
Football is a team sport. You can’t place the blame on one individual. But as the writer admits, he doesn’t like Giroud, he has been off form so it’s just easy to blame him. If we just get a deadly striker all our problems will be solved. When liverpool had the sas tearing up the prem, a lack of goals did not prevent them from winning the league.
“When liverpool had the sas tearing up the prem, a lack of goals did not prevent them from winning the league.”
Strong argument you have there. goes to show that whilst there is a dearth of quality (in this case strikers) is a big part of the problem, it isn’t at all the only problem.
For several seasons now there has been persistent shortage of mental strength/toughness required to through carry the team through the season without having such predictable periods of terrible meltdowns as we are experiencing right now.
I don’t know the solution to that one… the manager is saying it hasn’t got anything to do with lacking a leader in the team…so.
i think wenger subscribes the goebbels theory of propaganda. say the direct opposite of what’s true often enough and it’ll become true. when wenger keeps harping on about team solidarity etc, i think he’s saying it so the players hear it. the truth is probably the exact opposite. maybe sanchez/ozil are looking at each other as giroud fails to read another through pass.
OT: LC are a win and a draw away from making it 12pts away from us just like chelsht were when they won it last season..sorry my fellows but lets admit da truth “the race is between spuds n LC onli”.,
The best article i have seen on this site
Real
Real talk
Watching the game, newc look ok but not really carving out chances. Lei as usual take lead and try to hold on tight, don’t know why teams allow lei to be countering team. Teams should be trying to do a che with them. Anyhow, I reckon we should all watch it and give Lei our support because that usually curses us. Serious note, come on newc give em hell.
@Trevor
Their key man is Kante. Dude transitions high up the pitch, keeping their forwards in your face…
true, mahrez is also a player we dont have. a player who runs at players and causes chaos. if the new manager is smart, he should be biding for these two and get them in before others pick them
Spot on @jib. As useless as Giroud has been recently, it’s not all down to him. Yes, we did need a world class striker in the summer. But as per usual Wenger thinks we have enough squad depth to compete for the whole season. The season starts, then bang Welbeck and Wilshere out for a long period of time(nothing new there). As a team we have been shocking the last couple of months.The defending yesterday for the first goal was woeful.
It was from a simple throw in…
Wenger looks all but done as an Arsenal manager.
He can’t get the players to perform week in week out.
His decisions/ tactics are inundated. The man had gone stale. His substitutions baffles fans… But he insists the players are performing for him?? Hmmm
Our current problems are bigger. We have a yank owner that is only in it for the money $$$.
Kroenke’s words: I didn’t buy Arsenal to win trophies.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but why the **** would you buy a massive club like Arsenal if you didn’t want the club to be winning trophies every season??
Oh but, as long as Arsenal finish in the top four spot everything will be alright. It will be a successful season lol deja vu anyone?
sam: he bought it for the brand. he says so in the MIT sloan conference. he’s impressed w the arsenal brand. only if he sees degradation in that , would he sell/bail (or less likely, invest more to rescue us)
I tend to be hard on any one, included Giroud, callin him a donkey and so on. but to be honest, he is doing very good for someone who has cost us only 12milion.
If wenger would tell me play up front i would have said yes, but still suck big time. Its not the fault of the one who is being told to play, but rather the one who makes the decisions to start him.
Wenger again is the problem bec he ignores the problems. He is not stupid, he knows, but chooses to ingore it, therefor he is brutaly at fault and deserve every critisem what comes towards him. dont tell me i am wrong, and dont delete my comments, bec i am not hurtning any one in here.
i dont think wenger chooses to ignore it. i think wenger sincerely thinks giroud is ,for ever , on the brink of becoming really good. it’s wishful thinking. wenger is deluded because he thinks the players he has now can substantially improve their abilities [this applies also to theo/ox/ramsey…]
robin was scoring more then the current team put all together, so what the f bro? and besides, its not fabregas, song, nasri where in the pitch just to look cool, like theo.
if wenger cant see how far we’ve fallen , he’s …… what’s the word ? ….. delusional.
I wanna defend Giroud..
I really wanna…
..
..
I would need locking up if I did though and given a nice white jacket with extra long sleeves.
When Giroud tries then I do think he could be a fantastic forward but that could of been said about Berba as well.
I have tried my best to support him but he doesn’t do himself any justice and makes it hard for fans to get behind him all the time.
This season has shown that he is nothing more than a bench player, when he wants to play then he will show hunger and we see the best out of the man, he comes on and performs… esp when he does believe he can regain that spot.
Previous seasons he has had to play a LOT of games due to injuries and that made it hard to judge him, people who watch every game (like me) will have seen his slumps and also seen that they was after many games and almost like he stops trying once he feels secure in starting. Fans like me wanted to see if Giroud could perform like he does when he works hard when we haven’t had the injuries that we have had to deal with.
I personally wonder how much he would improve if Wenger openly said he would accept £10mil from any CL club for him and then benched him in favor of Welbz and Theo, I wouldn’t bet against Giroud stepping up his game and then people moaning at Wenger for selling such an asset.
The team needs a couple more players with Alexis and Campbells determination, players who will fight to play because they just want to play and be the best they can.
Girouds mentality also reminds me of NB52, anyone remember how that guy could turn on the ability when he wanted but had such an arrogance that it cost him? Great players have some grace to be human and recognize that other have great ability so it is down to the added bonus of working hard, even Messi works hard and that guy was born to be a great footballer.
i have been saying each of these points made for 2 years, you can not win the league w giroud as your feature CF, 13 goals per season in the epl will not win! last time we won the league Thierry had 27, you need a a min of 1 goal per two matches, 19 gps from your feature striker to win, prefer 21 goals min. 13 goals puts pressure on your defense, multiple goal matches mean too many matches without contribution, its simple math
dont agree with your opinion about Giroud. He has at least one or two sitters per game. when u miss those easy goals it has nothing to do with ur quality. the problem is his mental and the mental of the whole team. we all know it right?. What arsenal has been needing the last 5 years is WORLD CLASS SHRINK.
Yes Giroud is not up to arsenal’s standard. But our squad is full of average and below average players. Just try to combine Spud’s and Arsenal’s squad together or City and Arsenal and pick your best XI then you will see how much we are short of quality players. It is obvious Walcott, OX, Ramsey, Welbeck, Per are all average players if not below average.
IMO the only players that are up to Arsenal’s standard are:
1. Santi
2. Cos
3. Sanches
4. Ozil and
Nacho, Bellerin and Coq as squad players
Its NOT just Giroud its the whole strike force that are absolutly rubbish, I mean yes Giroud misses far more than he scores and that is NOT the mark of top notch striker, but Wellbeck is not the finished article and to my mind shows no signs of becoming so,
He seems to suffer from this innate lack of courage, a lot like Wallcott does, in laymans terms they sh!t out when it comes to the crunch, Giroud is just not good enough to be the striker we really need on the end of Ozil’s assists.
We all know what should happen here but we also all know that it wont and that get rid of Walcott and Giroud and start again with two more hungry top notch players that want to win stuff as niether of these two seem too bothered especially Wallcott who has been promising a whole lot and dselivering F@CK all for years on a huge salary, I wish Josh 37 was reading this now as he was one of the AKB’s last summer who sang Walcotts praises to the heavens and coated me right off for suggesting we should sell him.
Another telling fact is that despite Wenger prasing both Walcott and giroud to the heavens I noticed that NOONE actually knocked on our door and asked if they were sale AT ANY POINT!!!!! thats got to tell you something about thier calibre as viewed by the rest of the footballing world.