The French international centre forward should certainly be in the good books of Arsene Wenger at the moment, after Olivier Giroud came to the rescue off the bench once again at the weekend with a brilliant late header to earn a point at Manchester United that did not look likely as the end of the match approached.
That would not necessarily earn the big striker a place back in the starting line-up though, as he was back on the bench for the game after his previous super sub showing away to Sunderland. This time I think that Giroud will be in the team to face PSG for a number of reasons.
The main one is that as well as being in good form with four goals in his last four games, the striker is absolutely champing at the bit for more game time. Wenger described it last week as a positive anger and with the French champions coming to London I reckon that righteous fury will be even stronger, as he has been harshly treated by French fans for some time and so will be desperate to show them how wrong their criticism is.
I do not think we should underestimate this extra sort of motivating factor as it has been seen time and time again that a player with a point to prove often does so. Other reasons for the boss to go with Giroud is to possibly surprise PSG and to have as much goal threat as possible on the pitch and he did speak about both strikers in his pre match comments reported by The Mirror.
He said, “They are different styles of players and that dictates a different style to us and shape, as well as the form of players at the moment.
“It’s a mixture of many ingredients.
“My job is to select and decide and that is the same every week.”
If the Frenchman does start we will still have Alexis Sanchez to do his thing but from the left instead of the middle, especially with the news reported by Just Arsenal yesterday that their right back Serge Aurier is not allowed into the UK. Plus our chances of scoring from set pieces will be much greater.
Giroud might be back on the bench for the Premier League game against Bournemouth but do you agree that he needs to start against PSG?
Bob.