He may have barely kicked a ball in anger for Arsenal so far this season, but fresh from his impressive goal scoring form for his nation at Euro 2016, Olivier Giroud is carrying on where he left off for the France national team. He scored in their friendly against Italy on Thursday and will be hoping to hit the headlines again on Tuesday when they take on Belarus in the first of the games in the World Cup qualifying group.
The extra fitness and confidence that the big striker will hopefully get at international level is good news for the Gunners, of course, but it is also very important for the player himself, as he now finds himself with extra competition at club level after Arsene Wenger completed the transfer of the Spanish forward Lucas Perez from Deportivo La Coruna before the summer window closed on Wednesday.
In an Evening Standard report the Frenchman has suggested that he has no problems with Arsenal adding another forward to the squad and he is not worried that Wenger has only given him 12 minutes of action so far, at the end of our away game against Leicester City, but Giroud must be aware that he is now under more pressure to perform well and hit the back of the net on a regular basis.
He said, “My club situation? I’m not worried, I came back very late from the Euros.
“It was normal to throw me in gradually. There is no problem on that side.”
Giroud is a player who thrives on confidence so if he had not scored that hat-trick at the end of last season to break the long scoring drought and then done himself justice at the Euros I would have been worried about how the Lucas Perez signing would affect him.
As it is, however, do you think that the new signing will actually bring out the best in our other centre forward?
Bob.
It is all good, he pick we benefit, he didn’t then perez took over and shine and we also benefit.
#HappyGunner
If Perez looks the business and gets a few early goals, well then yes I think Giroud will try harder. I reckon Giroud will score against Sou, it’ll be curious to see how Perez might react to Giroud playing well. I think Perez is gonna chase everything down like Alexis did when he arrived, I just don’t want to see him on the wing, because that would mean we didn’t get our striker, instead we got a replacement for Welbeck whilst he’s out. I’m not into the whole forward who can play anywhere along top thing, for me that just means he’s a midfielder who can pass dribble and score goals. Hopefully Perez will get a real shot at filling the void, he has a chance to do something he probably never dreamed of doing with the array of players lining up behind him.
I am hoping Perez will also improve Theo too
I hope Giroud brings his International form to us
Listen, if Giroud can score 16 goals in a season than he can score 20
Last season he scored 16 even though he had a 15 PL non-scoring streak
hope you are right on giroud but walcott lacks the brains and ability to be anything other than average at best … and the fact that wengers misplaced faith in the man is probably one of the reasons we never went for griezman after the last world cup is grounds enough for wanting to see the back of him asap
Yep. What makes it more frustrating is that Theo is average AND making £140,000 per week
Oxlade and Perez are pretty much the same or better and they make half as much
There seems to be a little in theo we always trust ( aka twats) clique on this site .. Suggest they go carefully over his 20 mins for England performance … Hopeless first touch and inability to dribble past defenders … For 140 grand a week it’s a footballing scam
Yes, he can improve giroud performance once wenger change his tactics to 4 4 2. Just used perez like the way they used griezman in france national team
Many fans and pundits have been assuming that the situation pits Giroud vs. Perez – a direct head to head competition. This may be true or perhaps it is not that clear.
Wenger may indeed deploy Perez on the wing with Alexsis and use Giroud primarily up top – this may be his formation of 1st choice. The only problem with that theory is Ramsey would be left out unless Wenger dares to insert Ramsey into one of the Xhaka/Cazorla, Coq/Elneny combinations. That would really get the fans and sports media wondering if Wenger was mentally stable.
Who knows how this will play out?
I don’t think Perez will play instead of Giroud at all. As we have seen with France, Giroud plays really well with a forward who can operate in the general vicinity. Knocking down crosses with his head and his body is a big weapon that most teams don’t have.
If we could play 442 with Walcott, Sanchez, Perez, Giroud with Ozil right behind them, then we would see our best attacking side.
If our defense can shut people down and let’s face it some teams will get only 1 to 2 shots a game on us especially at home when buses are parked we should really score goals and having OG to knock down crosses will give us that dimension.
we want a striker who scores on the opponent’s goal, not facing his own goal and hold up the play. we adhered with that for 4 seasons and the title was still a horror story for us fans.
Wenger seems to build the forward play by accommodating the hold up play master, but what about the assist master? if only he build the attack to suit Ozil’s style, we would have some silverware by now to be proud of.
Sorry but that we down not include me. I love any player that attacks the ball in the air. We are lucky to have the best around. Oh that assist master Ozil, I think he is great as well and if he could master the lob which he is doing much better with lately we might have had some silverware.
Giroud is unreliable. We all know this after 4 seasons of having him at Arsenal, so I don’t see why anyone is expecting him to bring his France form back to Arsenal. He clearly needs the pushing, and I’m hoping Perez can deliver. I’d like to see two upfront, but we know AW doesn’t ever play that way. Perez on the wing is not his best position, he even said so himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if Giroud remains our main strikers, but he’s inevitably going to drop in form, and that’s when we need our other strikers to step up, mainly Perez. The No 9. position is really open right now in my opinion. Hard to tell what’s going to happen.
oh, okay guess people have faith in Giroud, lmaoooo. Prepare for disappointment. Forgetful fans
very true, legends (eg. Henry) said that we won’t win the league with OG as our main striker, the prophecy has been proven true for 4 seasons already. keeping faith in him only extends our heart ache for more years. he can do nothing new
Giroud isn’t worried about Lucas perez because he probably knows that Wenger will be playing Lucas on the wing, more often than not, since he is officially an attacking midfielder And when you add that to Wenger’s previous statements of Sanchez being moved into the strikers position for this season, aswell as keeping Walcott in that role too, it brings sense to Giroud’s comments.
As always, Time will tell and hopefully with no more Groundhog syndromes! ?
Oh I just hope it brings out the best in Giroud. He has always done well when his place was under threat (as in several super-sub appearances). Hope Perez does well too.
OT: Admin, could you block other club’s fans (trolls) from joining the site, please? Atleast, from them commenting? Has anybody else noticed this thing?
We are really underrepresented in the England match
No arsenal player in the starting lineup
And only 1 player on the bench
You are right and I don’t know why you were down voted. And btw, Theo was bloody ridiculous coming on as substitute. Nightmarish comeback. I hope he doesn’t put similar displays for Arsenal
OG isn’t clinical enough to play the lone striker role, but he is a very good target man creator so lets hope that lucas and Alexis get in around him this season and bang in the goals he sets up!
As for Theo, he’s been making mugs out of us for a few years now. All this praise he is getting (EDIT: hes coming on for England, I bet he scores :D) for his new found enthusiasm to play on the wings? He should return his wages as he has been rubbish and put no effort in for years whilst wanting to play up top
I do not think Giroud is worried as yet, it comes down to who gets more play time, although the style of football may be moving away from hold up, back to pacey forwards base on what we have seen of the team so far. I think with this year we are bless with the opportunity to change the combination of attackers and not lose the quality.
Although injury have been one of our main issues in challenging for a title iin the past years, i think it has allowed some of our players to blossom and challenge for a place in the starting, for some reason i think we will be better off this season.
On to another topic Walcott played in the england match today, he was not too good and not too bad, i think he may be able to nail down a place in the starting line up if he does ok this season, on to England i think they will qualify for the world cup quite easy, but it remains to be seen what they do when they get there. There was also too few players playing as if they were hungry to qualify i guess most had in their head they do not want to get injured for fear on missing out on club duties.
It’s hard to imagine anyone getting excited about Giroud’s positon in our team.
I hope we switch to a fast-paced game. Even Wenger admitted that the game had changed and the emphasis is now of fast striker and fast CDers. This description does not fit Giroud. He is not fast and he limits the players around him because of his lack of speed.
I hope Perez will get the starting spot as central striker with fast players around him and Ozil exploring all that pace with his passes.
My preferred role for Giroud would be for him to come on as a super sub late in the game, but never to start a meaningful game again. He has had enough time to show if he could be a striker who could carry a team and his age the fact that he is not that striker is unlikely to change.