Thierry Henry is an Arsenal fans as well as being employed as a TV pundit by Sky Sports and the former Gunner makes no secret of the fact. So it was easy to see, and also to understand, his frustration that Arsenal and his former boss Arsene Wenger were once again left disappointed in their efforts to defeat Jose Mourinho and Chelsea.
But I have to take issue with some of the punditry that the Frenchman provided yesterday, specifically his take on his fellow countryman Olivier Giroud. As reported by the Daily Mail, Henry declared that Wenger needs to sign some more top class players this summer and I don´t think that any Arsenal fan would disagree with that, but his claim that we could not lift the Premier League trophy with Giroud as our centre forward was, in my opinion, very harsh on the big man and also inaccurate.
Henry said, “I think Giroud is doing extremely well. But can you win the league with him? I wouldn’t think so.
“He does a job, and he does it ever so well, but you can’t win the league.
“Arsenal were at the top of the league last season, but everyone was saying they are not going win the league.”
Henry spoke also about how Giroud needs the players around him to bring out his best and I can agree with that, As Henry pointed out, Giroud has not the pace or individual brilliance of a Suarez or a Messi but it is precisely the way he works with his team mates that makes him so good.
In my opinion it is not a replacement for Giroud that Arsenal need to sign, but another top class forward to operate on the other side to Alexis, someone like Marco Reus who would benefit from the power, aerial ability and link up play of our number 12.
The claim that Arsenal cannot win the Premier League is easily disproved by the stats, which show that since our France international forward returned from his tibia injury, Arsenal have played 21 BPL games and earned 50 points. Over a season that would give us 90.5 points and that total has not been reached in the previous six seasons and Chelsea will need to win all of their remaining games to beat it this time.
So how can you say that Arsenal cannot win the title with Giroud leading the line?