Arsene Wenger has moved to praise the performance by Olivier Giroud this weekend, dampening hopes of a new striker coming in in his place this summer.
The French international had been on a barren run of nearly four months without a Premier League goal, but ended that with his strike against Manchester City this weekend.
Wenger has moved to praise the impressive display of Giroud, and claims he knew the striker had a top outing in him.
“Olivier Giroud was questioned recently and I’m happy I kept confidence in him because I thought he had a top-level performance,” the manager told Arsenal Player. “He was fighting, he had control of the ball, he was finishing and he gave an assist.
“We showed a lot of character and the intensity of the game was very high,” he added. “We dealt well with what was thrown at us and Manchester City looked like they were doing absolutely everything to win the game. They are difficult to beat and we have shown again that we can get results against top teams.
“The fact we came back twice each time we were down, we looked like we had the response to score. I think we could have won the game in the end. Overall, it is a positive result.”
Arsenal fans are eager to see another top striker come in and displace the former Montpellier forward, but the recent comments will be a tough thought to process ahead of the summer window.
Arsene Wenger has continually been slammed for his failure to strengthen sufficiently in the transfer windows, and he now appears to have given himself the chance to turn down a new striking addition…
Will we add to our options up front? Or will he stick with the regularly-injured Theo and Welbz as well as Giroud?
Bob