Can Giroud prove his doubters wrong this season?

The transfer market business isn’t going in the way Arsenal fans expected. Not only Arsene Wenger isn’t making any business but it appears that he categorically ruled out any more transfers until after his pre-season trials.

Petr Cech is the only notable addition to the senior squad; in fact he is the only addition. The other purchases so far have been of the kids who have potential to break into the first team sometime later. The expectations from the fans were that there would be more names added to the squad.

And so, when Wenger landed in Singapore for the pre-season tour, he spoke about the signings made by Manchester United and his views on Raheem Sterling. Apart from voicing his displeasure on how the transfer market is bloated, he spoke about being content with the squad.

There’s no definite answer to how the supporters will react to this news but most of them will be a tad disappointed. There surely is more than one area of improvement – definitely in the final third. For now it is between Olivier Giroud and Danny Welbeck – but Wenger knows that both of them are yet to prove themselves as truly world-class.

Giroud’s lack of goals has often been criticized for being the sole reason of Arsenal’s failure to challenge for the Premier League. Not just the supporters but even the club legends Thierry Henry and Ian Wright question his pedigree.
So, when the new season starts and the first ball is kicked, it would be a huge test of character and skill for Giroud. He would have to prove that he’s good enough to lead the line for this great club. There is never a question on his link-up play or the final passes; rather, the worry is on the lack of goals.

Last season he scored 14 goals in 27 Premier League matches which is definitely way below expectations. The general benchmark for a striker is 20 goals and Giroud failed to score more than 16 in any of the three seasons he’s been at the Emirates. No wonder then that the cries from all the supporters is to bring a proven goal scorer to the club.

In view of these, Giroud should be under pressure to prove his worth. He may well have the skill but does he have it in him to be consistent through the season? The constant rumours of strikers being linked to the club do not help in any way. But, if Giroud can keep finding the net regularly, these rumours will be put to rest. It will be a huge season for Giroud, to prove his doubters that Wenger’s faith is justified. Coul he really come good this season?

Sridhar

Tags Giroud welbeck

64 Comments

    1. and he should just keep himself focus and improve rather than demanding a face to face chat with Henry for the criticism. truth is that no matter how we gonna put it Henry was just right, he should learn to accept criticism cause he’s playing for ARSENAL and any shit play you get criticized. Rambo passed through it excellently

      1. The biggest problem with Giroud is the fact he’s currently our best ST. That isn’t a slight against him, but at Arsenal the level expected of the ‘best’ ST is beyond what Giroud brings. If we had a talisman then Giroud would be lauded as a brilliant OPTION we have to mix it up with.

        As it stands he gets flak because fans expect to have a world class ST at the tip of the team and we’re trudging by with a substitute. I think Giroud in all of this has acted pretty admirably, he’s tried his best at being our leading man he simply has his limitations. Wenger should take the spotlight off of him and let him be what he inevitably is, a fantastic alternative ST for Arsenal.

    2. Giroud had a run of ten games ten goals last season. He was out injured for a long time and still managed to bag 14 goals,not bad at all. But we need a top striker to get us 35+ goals every season, giroud would be a great sub to have on the bench,him and welbeck can fight it out.giroud is a good striker and I’m a huge fan but he alone is not enough for a title challenge. We need another striker. Even dzeko would be an upgrade and good competition for giroud. Just don’t understand how calm Wenger is, it gets on my nerve sometimes

    3. since wen did an old dog start learning new tricks???…The “log” will simply slower us down because that is what slow objects do..his missed a sitter in his first game as a sub against sunderland and we ended up drawing…he then missed another at Liverpool and ooh my gosh from that moment on i knew we will have nightmares with the new guy…and hoping hed change, he proved me again and again how inefficient is…since then he has missed like a thousand chances costing us a lot of points…people don’t realize these but giroud’s misses are equivalent to goals scored due to poor defending by a player like djourou…we deserve better

    4. I’m not sure my mom would be happy with me if at this age I say to her, “Don’t worry, mom. I’d make you proud when I grow up.”

      1. In other words, Giroud has past the stage he could say he’s got something up his sleeves, and I expect no surprises from him.

    5. You are right, but G-string showed he can find the net regularly last season. Having said that, i do concur with all, G-Rod do need support, thats why we need Rolls Reus.

      G-Rude
      Sanchez Özil Reus
      Cazorla
      Le Coq

      Monreal Boss Per Bellerin
      Cech

      Subs-scszsny, gibbs, debuchy, theo, ramsey, wilshere

  1. Giroud isnt a bad striker.
    He should be our second choice. when plan A isnt working, he can come in and head the ball into the fukin net.

    But pls dont make Walcott a striker… he thinks hes the new henry but compared to reus/ schürle/ de bryne hes a joke!

    1. Answer to our problems is dzeko, he’s available and a great player to have. If we want to spend our cash we should get cavani. If we want to do it on a cheap let’s get dzeko…

      1. Not sure what Dzeko is the answer to – he has scored less than Giroud in the last 3 seasons. And for a side that won the PL twice in a side many on here laud as way superior to us.

  2. Giroud is an excellent 2nd choice striker but no, not first choice. He has had 3,seasons to prove himself and even though his scoring record hasn’t been bad in any way it should be noted that most of his goals are tap ins or simple headers. He has managed very good goals only a few times. Also since we play with only one striker we need that penetration upfront wich he never came close to providing. Since it seems like Wenger wudnt be signing a DM,our season really depends on the quality of the striker/winger we sign, i.e. If we do sign one.

    1. Wojciech Szczesny: “I want to stay at Arsenal for the rest of my career. I can’t imagine playing anywhere else”

      1. And Wenger just confirmed Chuba Akpom won’t be loaned out. meaning no striker. loools. but I wanna see Akpom play for arsenal this season, seems loaning out our strikers this days stagnant their progression.

        1. We are the most useless fans in the world,happy with akpom and now all the sudden we would settle with akpom and forget about a new striker cuz we have akpom.very funny indeed. We arsenal fans are so good and always happy with what we got. Just like how we are always happy with a top four finish.can’t believe we would actually even think about akpom as a solution to our striking problems

  3. And for Flamini, he was shiit in today’s match noting it was just a preseason game. he needs to go.

      1. Oh come on the biggest? I mean he was free, he played a couple of good games, I admit he was a mistake but not as much as some others, such as Park, or Sylvestre, or the Squid.

  4. Giroud isnt bad but he just isnt world class, and as for wenger to say hes happy with his squad is a joke! Flamini, arteta and mertesacker! How can u be happy with that. Combined with wilshere and walcotts injury history, it doesnt bowed well, oh and dont forget sanchez will miss the first couple of games in the season

  5. Its only in arsenal where we wait for a 29yr old to prove himself.Deluded fans here keep saying we are two players short of title,even if we add them epl now will be competitive than never b4 you can never be sure

  6. I think he’ll get the usual 10-15 goals a season + a couple of assists just as he has done for the past few seasons. The problem is we’re not getting enough goals from midfield. The OX, Ozil and Cazorla need to step up so we don’t have to rely too much on Giroud.

    1. @Twig that is it right there. Our midfield should be getting goals because when OG plays he plays as a target (the ball goes in to him and others cut off that pass or around the target. Santi and Ozil both numerous times had games where they had more opportunities they OG.
      What I feel the people here want is to do away with style of play AW has set up because even when Welbeck played lone striker many times he was back to goal for the link up for many of the one twos with the midfield.

      1. Giroud completely changes the nature of attack and often nullifies pace of wingers IMO. Time and place for hold up style; as a plan B.
        Honestly, I’ve yet to see Real, B Munich, Barca or any top clubs greedily hoarding all hold up players for themselves. Giroud has def place in squad but not a 1st option.

      2. Excuses excuses excuses…oh what new excuse can I make for my dear sweet Oliver Giroud?
        Yes i have one, he is a ST but the midfield could be scoring goals and not him. He should stand just stand there like a useless log of wood because he is a target man.
        RUBBISH.

  7. We need a good Striker, Wenger himself knows that. But whether we’ll get one is another thing entirely. We fall short every season Bcos of Wenger’s stubbornness. Why does dis man claim to Love dis team yet disregards the fans and doesn’t care about our emotions? Every top team has hope considering their signings even Liverpool. What did we do wrong supporting Arsenal? arsene hates us fans… But why?????

  8. @selfacclaimedseasonTH, You seem to have problem with respecting peoples opinion (if it doesnt allignt with your crude ones). A fan wrote an article base on his vantage point but your achaic self generalise it as all gooners view, you excluded. Are you traumatised?

  9. Discussions regarding OG are always quite heated on here, but I’d like to point out that he did indeed score 14 goals in 27 appearances: however, only 21 of those matches were starts. His ratio looks a lot better then.

    Personally I don’t think OG has the quick mobility and the ability to get a clinical shot away quickly enough to be up there with the Diego Costa’s or Karim Benzema’s of this world. This is why so many of us would jump at the chance to have a player like Benzema up front for us making those darting runs and getting shots away early.

    But OG gets an awful lot of oft-repeated stick from our fans who are just parroting pundits (or who remember the Monaco match). Pundits like Phil Neville who said in early April that we wouldn’t even finish in the top 4…

  10. @okblack, who are these us you referred to. So wenger should buy base on your view. I dont think he was pressurised by you before he bought cech, sanchez,ozil etc

  11. Why cant we offer Real Giroud +15 m to sign Benzema ? Akpom can be our second choice striker. Walcott and Welbeck can also play cf. Giroud is just not good enough and will never improve.

    1. How about because they would never in a million years accept that offer?

      What are you talking about, Giroud has improved three seasons straight.

      1. Becoz Real want Ronaldo to play as CF. I heard some rumours they are interested in Llorente and want big name Reus. So, if thats true lets buy Benzema and give them Giroud.

      2. Giroud has been at Arsenal for 3 seasons and he is yet to score 20 league goals in one season. He is 29 now not 19-20 where he will improve. He wont win us league. How about selling and buy top quality striker. Giroud wont stay as 2nd choice striker so sell him.

      3. he’s improved every year, but that just shows how bad of a signing he originally was. He has still never scored more than 20 goals a season. This is poor, and simply not good enough. Arsenal used to always have top strikers, Giroud is simply below standard. He’s become decent but thats not enough to win title.

      4. Yes giroud has improved season by season and if we don’t get a new striker I excpect to see him get 20+ goals this season.he can lead our line but we can bring in a new striker and upgrade our striker position. But with giroud, Theo,welbeck and now akpom I can’t see Wenger signing a striker.

    2. @moneytalks
      Akpom as 2nd choice striker? Are you fkng kidding or what? We play our CF as “targetman” and no one in our squad does it better than Olivier, next is Sanogo.
      Akpom just scored a hattrick against a rag tag Singapore side. that don’t make him eligible to handle Shawcross or Skrtel…

    3. I feel as if I am in a parallel universe here. Benezema can be ten times better than Giroud for all I care but he competes with OG for a spot in French national team and has an almost identical league goal record. He has scored an average of 14.5 league goals a season over 6 years for Real Madrid who score 100+ league goals every frigging season. And don’t give me the stuff about Ronaldo taking centre stage – if you take Ronaldo’s goals away from their league tally last year there were still another 70 goals scored! One less than we managed last year.

  12. Wenger ruined Akpom last season by picking Sanogoal over him. Sanogo might have scored 4 against Benfica but Akpom was more impressive against Moncao. Akpom is more quicker, stronger, passer, shooter, dribble much better at 18 than Sanogo at 22.

    1. @moneytalks
      Sanogo is better than Akpom at playing “targetman”. He bullies defenders and can take a beating.

  13. Giroud has had his chances, not good enough and not top class. He’s become a decent striker, nothing more.

  14. I honestly believe Giroud will have his greatest season to date. He’s not one of those players that’ll pick up injuries easily/regularly so it was very unfortunate last season. Whether some like to admit or not he is a big loss when missing. He deserves credit for the number of goals he got last season for a player who had been sidelined almost as often as he was fit. Only himself and Ageuro can boast good numbers considering the time missed. If he had of played the full season there is a definitive likelihood he would have been up there with the rest of the golden boot chasers.

    1. Trust me, even if he played the full season, he wouldn’t still do sh*t.
      Costa was also injured a good amount too. Harry Kane, Charlie Austin, Berahino, Benteke all managed their tallies while playing for teams with way lower creative midfield force than we have at Arsenal. You can’t compare our midfield to Spurs, QPR,West from, Everton, Aston villa etc.
      In my opinion they are all better strikers than Giroud.
      Berahino, Kane and Benteke are also more dynamic and exciting to watch. I didn’t really watch Austin enough to judge but those other 3 I can vouch for.

      1. As I have said below – contrary to what you say – you can compare our midfield to the likes of Everton and Spurs – theirs created more chances than us per match in OG’s first 2 seasons. We ranked 5th and 7th in the PL in terms of chances created in those 2 seasons.

  15. Giroud is good. He will never be quite from the top drawer of strikers and certainly not from the pinacle. He does his job and I will never knock the guy for the hard work he does and last season he did put in a great shift. Actually 14 from 27 is at over 1 every 2 games and that’s ignoring that it was only 21 starts. Having one of the highest goals per minute ratios in the league wasn’t down to him being awful. People on here are far too harsh on the guy.

    That said, Giroud will rarely score the spectacular goals. He will be there to finish off some of the plethora of chances we create but rarely will he score the sniffs or the non-chances that some strikers do. That doesn’t mean I want a striker who will bang in 1 super goal and then spend 3 games doing fudge all. It means that I’d like a top drawer striker who can score the non-chances and convert the chances. Sadly a consistent striker with an added edge is in HIGH demand. There’s been an awful lot said about the lack of quality strikers at this time in the world. Virtually anyone is a risk and with our budget, we can’t afford a big money flop. The next Torres is all too real – if we get a striker who doesn’t acclimatize or doesn’t suit our system and we’ve spent big bucks…needless to say we won’t bounce back financially.

    40m is the top end of our ability to spend. Wages cannot exceed 150k so I imagine we’re actually talking 30m top end for a striker (the guys have egos). Realistically that rules out Cavani and Higuain and Benzema even. This leaves Lacazette as our best option. I’d take the risk. BUT if we don’t, it’s still not bad business in my opinion because ultimately we just aren’t able to compete on the mad money. Thanks to FFP going down the toilet I think Arsenal either have to go down the money bags route or accept being 4th place. We cannot compete financially with Man Utd, Chelsea or City. End of.

    Does this mean Giroud has to prove his doubters wrong? Sadly he never will. His doubters want Suarez, Aguero or Costa up top. Sadly there’s not many players in that caliber and ALL of them are wrapped up nice and cosey on wages we can’t afford. Giroud is already playing well, and those who want more need to look at the reality of the situation and see we need to take risks on potential brilliance if we have a chance of the super worldie. The purchased worldie up top is probably just not possible considering the lack of options.

    1. Good piece. There is however a widely held opinion about Arsenal’s huge midfield creativity that masquerades as fact – often used as a blunt instrument to bludgeon OG with.

      Truth is in the last 3 seasons we have been the 5th, 7th and 2nd ranked team in terms of chances created. K-ool says above with his normal certainty that you can’t compare Spurs or Everton midfields to ours – well actually you can. They were better than us in OG’s first two seasons in 2012-13 and 2013-14. And the disparity between the number of chances created by the top, middle and bottom teams is not as great as some might imagine. The 1st ranked teams for the last 3 seasons have been City, Liverpool and City again with an average of 12, 13 and 12 chances created per game. Most middle ranked PL create 9-10 chances a game. The bottom teams average 7.

  16. Walcott
    Sanchez Ozil Oxlade-Chamberlain
    Cazorla Coquelin
    Monreal Koscielny Mertesacker Bellerin
    Cech

    In my mind this is our current first 11. But Debuchy, Wilshere, Ramsey and Gabriel are very very close. I hope Coquelin won’t be sacrificed to accommodate Wilshere (I actually think this would happen 🙁 ). He was a major reason why we finished where we finished last season.

  17. Don’t think even if he played in France or Spain he would get about 20 goles
    Even the EPL champs are buying and all done so they can win easy but AW yet again doing the same shit. New hole keeper yeah but he is 33 n 34 soon. We need 3 players simple and why because we were not even close to winning

    1. Giroud wouldn’t get 20 goals in France you say?

      2011/12 – Giroud 21 goals 36 apps

      Named top goalscorer as he scored more from open play than Nene. That season he scored 25 from 42 Apps in all competition. Talk about a naive statement…

      3 players scored more than 20 goals last season. Lets remove penalties and relook at the top scorers:

      Aguero 21
      Kane 19
      Costa 19

      Only 1 player hit the 20 goal mark if you take away their penalties. SO this whole “get 20 goals” thing is easy to say, much harder in practice! If Giroud hadn’t been out injured for 11 matches do you reckon he’d have got another 5/6 goals? His goal/game ratio suggest he would have!

      Please at least argue your point with some common sense instead of just reacting to feelings. I agree we need an improvement but gosh darn that was a silly statement.

      1. Champagne Charlie hates it when I discount penalties so you should watch out. Of course they count but if you want a proper conversation about strikers that “score something out of nothing” as so many bang on about then don’t see any reason why they should inflate their tallies/reps with 12 yard tap-ins. You could also add context by giving similar figures last season for Benzema, Higuain, Cavani, Martinez, Ibrahimovic, Suarez and Lacazette – 15,18,15,20,11,16 and 19 respectively.

  18. I agree he’s a good 2nd choice but this? “Last season he scored 14 goals in 27 Premier League matches which is definitely way below expectations”… with the injury and him being the only one stiking in most matches ?? am not saying he’s world class but the way we belittle our players pisses me.. Ask messi and he’ll tell you how Neymar and Suarez contributed to their victory. We had only Sanchez carrying us until Giroud did when he came back from injury. If Giroud leads our attack this season,we should support him and help him believe we believe in him afterall its not his fault we don’t have a world class striker..its not like he’s threathen Wenger with a gun to the head not to sign… Is Giroud responsible for our transfers?? we should support our players please, honestly we don’t appreciate the players we have,we complain alot. wenger is to blame if Giroud leads our frontline this season not Giroud himself

  19. Amount of chances we create, this guy should be scoring double the amount…and re his pace even the refs are friggin faster than him!
    Already got a younger Giroud in Welbeck…dont need two!
    sell this donkey and invest in WC striker for trophies sake Wenger!!!

  20. Why is that impatient kiddies (I make that assumption as that’s how it sounds…rattles prams etc) on this forum constantly resort to slagging off our players? Giroud is 28 so not ‘old’ as some kids suggest, he’s improved every year and he works his socks off every time he runs out onto the pitch. Whether we could have, or will have, a better CF is an entirely different question, but why slag the player?

    Not sure I can stand much more emotive and irrational transfer saga debate. Roll on September 1st.

  21. What i think as become arsenal problem is the fact that our style of play have evolved from our quick moving forward to one that is more stationary, who relies on midfield support to create for him and also gives him the opportunity to provide a number of assist.

    Giroud has been outstanding as the latter type of forward, we may have lost goals coming from the forward , but i think the other members of the squad have contributed in that area.

    There is however two drawbacks to Giroud type of forward play, one, when our midfielders are not allowed to play their game and provide for Giroud, he can not provide for himself using trickery, two, he cannot out run or out pace any defense who chose to play a high line.

    Its obvious when playing without Giroud we tend to look unbalance, because obviously our present team his built around Giroud. He adds a lot to the team. I would rather see a pacey forward up front than a Giroud, which we do have, Walcott, Welbeck and young Akpom.

    Bringing in a new striker is looking even more unlikely no, so if we are not reverting to our former style of forward we must increase our goal totally in all parts of the team

  22. Can’t see what the fuss is about having Giroud leading the line. The fact is that we don’t need a striker that scores 30 goals because then we will be too dependent on that striker. Arsenal plays a team game that way the goals and defending are shared among the players. Being too dependent on a 30+ goal strikers kills potential goalscorers like Ramsey, Ox, Walcott, Ozil, Carzola, etc. Remember what happened with Robin Vanpurse string leaving. I think if you play a team game then in times of crisis you will fear better than teams too dependent on 1 striker for goals. Look at what almost happened with Aston Villa when Benteke was not firing. Look at what happened with Chelsea when Cost was constantly injured they had to go for the defensive game. Arsenal will be just fine with or without Giroud upfront.

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