Ever since the big centre forward came to Arsenal fresh off the back of topping the scoring charts with 21 goals to help his club Montpellier to their first ever French Ligue 1 title, Olivier Giroud has been the target of scorn for some Arsenal fans.
I understand that many were not happy about him being the replacement for Robin van Persie at the time but that was hardly his fault and he certainly did better for us than Wenger’s other striker signing of that summer, Lukas Podolski.
Yes the Frenchman has missed chances and some easy looking ones at that. He has had periods in which his form and confidence have dropped considerably and I certainly agree with the theory that Arsenal need more than just Giroud to fire us to the Premier League title.
At the same time, Giroud is still our best option at centre forward and he has done a good and fairly consistent job in his four seasons as a Gunner. Of course a lot of us are still hoping that Wenger adds another striker to the Arsenal squad before the transfer window closes, but if he does not do this week I think we are all hoping to see Giroud lead our attack against Watford.
Don’t forget that Alexandre Lacazette, who a lot of Gooners want Wenger to splash big money to sign, did not even make the France squad for Euro 2016, while Giroud was the first choice forward and ended up winning the bronze boot at the tournament.
So in light of the situation and how Arsenal have struggled without him, is it time for Arsenal fans to appreciate Olivier a bit more?
Bob.
Were we not strongly linked to Hernandez in the last transfer window? What happened? No interest anymore??
@Twig
‘Strongly linked’ is still a rumour.
A rumour is something without an iota of truth in it.
Period.
giroud being our best centre foward is
the problem.
He is goidvenough for the bench but is not a starter.
As are 80% of our players
Thank you… It’s finally being said, Olivier Giroud like many Arsenal players are oxymorons of Arsenals transfer policy, “I only want to spend on quality”.. If quality means a striker who goes missing for 14 games we are rolling in them. Drives me up the wall how people insist Wenger is only after top class players then fills the squad with transfer bargain bin busts..
Nah… He can go as far as I’m concern and can bring with him kreonke, gazidis, wenger, walcott, gibbs, chambers, sanogo, akpom, wilshere etc…What we need is ruthless in every way!!!
Off the topic, but what we really need is to change everything… We must start with this one that Arsenal is the biggest club in London and 4th richest in the world… So we cant have a space for these no names, its okey when you have one or two but 80% of the team is too much…
The reason why we struggled in the two games we played wasn’t that Giroud wasn’t playing. It was that we didn’t have a striker in the team. Not a single one. That is why! In fact we don’t have striker in the squad other than Giroud. And he plays with his back to the goal! By the time the big cruise-liner manages to turn around the entire defensive wall of the opposition is lined out to block our attack. That is why when we dominate the play we end up dropping points. We really only do well when we don’t dominate the play.
Glad you can see he plays back to goal. That is what a target man does. He links up play with the other forwards and attacking mids. Funny Greizeman loved to link up with Olivier. We will play better with Ozil and Giroud in the starting 11.
If the service comes in for him he is a dangerous player and the best header of the ball in the league in my opinion.
So many here were stating Sanchez can do the business up front. Theo as well was giving time last year.
All those wanting to see OG not play must realize he is the best player for our possession style.
Giroud is not as Good as Ibrahimoic, Aguero, Kane, Vardy
Where will our goals come from?
Giroud is on the same level as these goal scorers Lukaku, Ighalo, Bony, Deeney, Mahrez
But its not just the total goals scored. Giroud went 15 PL matches without scoring
Its about quality of finishing too
Theo is worse
We were hoping Walcott, Alexis and Giroud could make up for a Top CF but it didn’t happen. Walcott should have played on the right not up front. That didnt help either
I’d imagine Ozil was upset with Theo and Giroud’s finishing because it cost him breaking Henry’s assist record
TBH, at this point in time I would be happy if we’d taken Negredo on loan, instead of Middlesborough. There are budget strikers around, which ok, wouldn’t be an ideal solution, but at least they would give us some cutting edge, which we just haven’t got. Looking at game over the weekend a blind man could’ve seen that we really needed a striker over a midfielder.
But it was Ozil that made the instant impact not Giroud.
Ozil created 2 ~ 3 chances like 5 minutes after he was brought on…
So Bob are you saying Giroud is better than Lacazette.Only Arsenal fans say shameful things like that.Have you ever cared to know what other fans of other clubs think of Giroud?. I guess not.Olivier Giroud is an ordinary player and please lets forget about his stats for a moment.What’s so special about him?I for one think he’s good enough for only midtable clubs and I doubt even a team like Everton will like to use him as a first choice cf.What people don’t know here is that if Arsenal had a manger who was ruthless in terms of management Giroud would not have been an arsenal player by now or would nt be getting many games.I’m not here to insult him or to point figures or anything.But hey why don’t you guys for once accept that he’s an average player.I just don’t get it.Why can’t you guys accept that?
So in your opinion the France team manager is ‘shameful’ because he chose Giroud rather than Lacazette? And how did that work out for the French team… just great!
Of course you, with all your vast experience in these matters, know far better than this ex-international player and manager eh?
Bob it boils down to a fundamental question are we a big club or not? Because if we are why are we effectively being forced to accept average, we pay the most in terms of match day tickets and season tickets and your telling me the best this ‘big club’ can do is Giroud , who is pretty average of you ask me.
This is what Wenger wants…to play without a st and make us appreciate Giroud…
Biggest penny pincher in the world…
NO NO NO!!!! We need a better striker than Giroud to come in. Because on a scale of 1 to 10 Giroud is a 4 and the rest of the strike force are 1s and 2s, doesn’t mean we should “appreciate” him. We need a striker that’s a 8 (at least), then we’ll “appreciate” Giroud when he comes on as a sub and scores the odd goal.
to have to appreciate Giroud more is a direct result of Wenger not signing a striker. Would be reading this post at this stage of the season if we had signed Morata, Lacazette, Hernandez, Higauin?
We must appreciate Giroud because he is the best will see, same for 4th place, we must hope for it because it the best we can do.
That doesn’t mean Giroud would be the best we could see if we had signed Pep or Klopp or Mourinho and it doesn’t mean 4th place would be the best we could do if we had any of those managers since pre-season.
I find myself getting more interested in the turnaround story at Man U (despite the fact that I don’t like Mourinho, but respect his ability and competitive spirit), I find myself hoping Pep will succeed in integrating his style at City quick enough for them to end above Man U, and I find myself tracking Koeman and hoping he will do well at Everton because he might be one of the better managers we can hope for once Wenger has ran us into the ground and leaves.
I don’t find myself looking forward to anything Arsenal because it simply is the same old stuff over and over again.
No one excites me at Arsenal, even my favorite player, Sanchez, seems to have given up on us.
this sounds like saying “Arsenal fans should be appreciative of Mertesacker because when a RB (Chambers) was used in in CB he struggled”…
We should be negotiating with WestHam now on how to sell Giroud to them for 30m like Liverpool did with Benteke and go for a real striker and not a model.
.
thatz if WestHam are foolish enough to pay 30m for Giroud.
Lewandowski scores hattrick, Lacazette 5goals in 2games, Bacca hattrick, Higuain came from the bench to give Juve the winner..
and we stuck with Giroud that comes from the bench to guide defenders in the 18yard box waiting for the ball to roll itself in.
the story continues… episode 13