I don’t know what exactly has been casing Giroud’s early season fitness problems but Wenger rates Giroud pretty highly and he will be back in the side, and he will play a major role this campaign. All this talk of him being a super sub or that he’s incapable of being effective with the way this side is playing nonsense imo.
Think people are a bit excited with the way we’ve been playing and are reading too much into our current form tbh it’s not even 10 games into the season yet but there’s talk of Giroud being ‘eased’ out of the team.
The likes of Lucas, Giroud, Elneny and Xhaka have all been frozen out of the 11 due to Wenger’s preference for maintaining form by preserving the cohesion through little to no rotation. Xhaka is only getting starts because of Coq’s injury. Wenger favoured Coq aginst PSG and Chelsea without a doubt Coq have started against Basel too if he was fit for the sake of cohesion.
Xhaka would be in the same boat as Giroud, Elneny and Lucus being basically relegated into making sub appearances at this point in time because he doesn’t want the current 11 distributed.
Every player you mentioned is in a different situation though. We know Xhaka is being ‘prepared’ to be starting for us eventually. Elneny it was clear as day he was not going to be substitute. imo. I never thought we signed a projected starting player with Elneny, but rather someone to fill in Flamini’s spot. Perez still has to prove he’s even good enough and has a place at this club.
Giroud in this case is the known quantity. We know who he is, we know what he can and can’t do. He might not be fit right know, but it wouldn’t suprise me this is going to be our frontline for the majority of the games, if we keep playing well.
What does preparing Xhaka even mean? Wenger said it himself a few weeks back: Santi and Coq are playing because they have an established and proven partnership.
Elneny should be featuring more often. Santi, now more than ever, needs to be managed properly, he should be rotated with Mo more often but Santi stays in the side because cohesion.
I don’t buy this ‘Lucas needs to prove himself’ angle, when you sign a 28 year old player for £15m+ you know what you’re going to get in terms of contributions. Even then how does he prove himself without regular starts or even sub appearances. He’s been frozen out because of the form of the current front 3. Wenger does not want to disrupt that because again cohesion in light out our current form. He should be more involved for the sake of rotation.
Giroud is a weird situation. He’s got some problems with fitness hence why Alexis was given the nod upfront. We’ll see in the future but I think he’ll feature heavily as the season progresses
I know this is a 100% dogshit bullshit site BUT if that quote is true, I wonder if something is up with Giroud. Giroud gets himself sent off didn’t look like he was hobbling but supposedly fractured or hurt his toe…why is he not on crutches etc. Something doesn’t seem right…gone in January?
We nee Giroud as back up this season but I’d be genuinely happy to see him phased out of the squad, much more talented players in the past have been phased out for less.
Is it just his fitness though? He started twice for the French national team in the friendly and the first world cup qualifier earlier in september. But he didn’t for us. He’s going to get his minutes, but maybe not as a starting player per se.
Wenger chose for stability after the Liverpool game, but we know Xhaka is going to be integrated eventually. Preparing was maybe the wrong word.
Gervinho (although younger) and Podolski came from similar situations (transferring from smaller clubs to us). They both got found out as not being good enough. The same could very well happen with Perez, who hasn’t even proven as much as Gervinho nor Podolski when they came here.
Confident and trying his hardest = good player.
Not doing those things = not a good player.
I’m not sure he’s as useless as we may think he is for our new(ish) style when he’s trying, as he can chase balls and come deep and drift around the pitch too, but in one of his lazy moods he’ll be pointless.
I have a feeling he’ll raise his game when given the chance and fight for his place, but if he doesn’t get his place (which could be a possibility based on what we’re seeing now) then I can see him getting fed up and losing his drive, maybe even ask for a move to a league where constantly saying “EY!” to the ref might actually get you a free kick.
Maybe Wenger has finally realised that playing a big lump up top just does not suit us and we are so much more effiecient with a false 9 like Sanchez
Giroud has always had a high percentage of turnovers and has been the reason a lot of our moves breakdown. We look really fluid with Sanchez up top as he drops deep and is a nightmare to mark. Whereas Giroud is easy to mark and also spends a lot of time moaning instead of getting on with it.
Happy he is getting minimal time as we are looking formiddable right now.
Here’s hoping that’s the case, as much as I appreciate what the big man brings to the table he’s one of the reasons why teams have found it so easy to set up against us in the past.
To be fair to the boss tho I think he did hint at switching it up at the at the back end of last season on BeinSports
“Football progresses always, the offense creates new problems, the defense repsonds. What has happened in the last 10 years, the strikers have become quicker and quicker”
“What happened ?”
“The defense responded by creating defenders who are quicker and quicker so now to put strikers in who are slow you really have a big problem you know, so pace will be needed”
This idea that Giroud doesn’t suit us or that defenders find it easy to play against him is a myth. There’s no real evidence to support it yet there tons on stats and visual evidence which proves he’s a menace
You can get around this by fighting the defenders like Drogba or Costa - Giroud mostly ends up on the floor with his arms in the air when he goes in for that.
It was reported in the French media in the summer than Giroud was told he wouldn’t be starting next season for Arsenal. It was just a rumour then but now he well isn’t starting
No it isn’t. Giroud is best at attacking crosses, preferably high crosses and we don’t cross much, we put in through balls. Slow strikers with poor agility are poor at getting on the end of through ball chances and finishing them.
As for stats how about missed most clear cut chances stat, which puts him near the top over his time here? He has his uses but calling him ‘a menace’ is laughable.
@Craigie Defenders don’t like alot of things, there’s an equal dislike of defending against a competent target man who occupies space in the final third and is a consistent areial danger. The pace of a CF can easily be countered by teams sitting deep with two banks of four. Pace is so overrated tbh
Aggression/fighting is not the only way to compensate for the lack of pace. Guys like Zlatan, Mandzukic and Giroud have a high level technical proficiency which goes a long way in negating the lack of pace and even makes them a more effective player against teams that defend very deep.
Look at our best goals over the last couple of seasons and Giroud usually plays a key role. His relationship with Ramsey in 13/14 went complete unrecognized
@arsenescoatmaker Giroud is competent with the ball at his feet, he doesn’t need crosses to be serviced effectively as evidence by his excellent link up play we’ve seen over the years.
Thing is with Arsenal most teams we play against will sit deep especially in the league. Large parts of last season our pace was largely useless as we pass and probed around the opposition box. With no space to make runs how effective is pace?
Alexis is also near the top of most missed clear cut chances on top of the fact he was more wasteful in front of goal than Giroud last season. The stats which show he’s a menace are the fact he’s been in the top 10 aerial dual winners amongst attackers in the league since 12/13 OR the fact that he’s scored the most headed goals in the league since 12/13 with his headed goals only making up 33.3% of his scoring type. You don’t think this, up to of his target man play, is a menace for defenders? There are too many visual examples to cite
The fabled ‘link up play’ is vastly overrated, he’s adequate at it. He can’t dribble past a defender, he can’t get a yard on a defender because he’s too slow and when he gets a chance he often lacks the agility to score chances. His finishing because of his agility is generally poor and like I say his percentage of missed clear cut chances has been very high in his whole time at Arsenal. And no Alexis is not top of clear cut chances lists.
One of the few times we used Giroud properly was last season when Ozil put it endless crosses and he eventually headed a goal.
I think your last argument ‘the headed goals’ shows that no Giroud does not suit our style of play. He’d be very good for a team who constantly put crosses in the box at 7ft in the air, this isn’t Arsenal’s style though. If we were going to play like that we may aswell play Ozil and Cazorla on the wing because no one else can put in decent crosses. But it would be of detriment to the rest of the team.
As for his ‘target man play’ being menacing, seriously? He’s a target because he can’t run in behind, once he gets the ball he typically loses it or passes it backwards. That’s not something defenders are losing sleep over.