Montpellier v Arsenal match thread

[kiwomya]

I have to admit I was wrong about Podolski and Gilvinho is doing quite well but as stated by many posters in here Giroud looks like joining the long list of failures in the forward position.

Quality

Anelka
Henry
Wiltord
Van Persie

Fail

Adebayor
Bendtner
Park
Jeffers
Eduardo
Chamakh

Plus many others Pires and Llungburg were wingers so dont count.

Depends what you are picking them on the basis of. Adebayor scored more than Wiltord and Anelka. I reckon Bendtner scored as many as Anelka as well to be honest.

[clockender1]

and Freddie played centre forward more than once when injuries necessitated it - including that liverpool FA Cup final if memory serves.

Uncle Bouldy said last night on the radio that the tiredness was due to 'humidity'...

[clockender1]

Have to admit that did make me laugh

me too. even a stopped clock is right twice a day flash

[Babatunde]

Don't think Adebayor can be classed as a failure, agree with Gunnersaurus there. He scored 30 goals in a season for us and was one of the best strikers in the league when on form for Arsenal. All the others are flops though.
I am sorry but Giroud is going to go down in that category, I am genuinely worried that he won't score more than 8 league goals all season!
I still don't understand why almost £13 mil was spent on him, Montpellier must be wetting themselves with that fee, as did Lille when we paid £13 mil for Gervinho
Thing is the way Arsenal play football requires a striker to have at least one of 2 things:
1. Pace
2. Exceptional technique.

Henry had both. Adebayor had pace, the occasional sublime technique (see goal vs Spuds at Shite Lane. Giroud could never do that). RVP had debatably, both. Giroud has neither though
It is nothing to do with 'settling in period' imo. Pires and Bergkamp etc needed a settling in period because they weren't used to the physicality of the English game - if you've played high level international football like they have, pace of the game isn't a surprise. International football is dam fast and the speed of technical execution leaves poor players exposed (again see almost every international appearance by Giroud).

Giroud is already adapted to the physicality of English football and this is the hardest part! 'Settling in' periods have nowt to do with what we have seen so far from him: missing a sitter from 3 yards out at home, deciding to take a speculative 50-yard punt when you have a team-mate steaming through the middle totally unmarked shows a lack of awareness, trying a bicycle kick when a simple volley is on is just silly (again at Stoke) and not even hitting the target at Anfield when rolled in 5 yards dead in front of goal is inexcusable. He is a number 9 and missing sitter after sitter is nowt to do with 'settling in' periods.

I used to hear the same excuses being made for Jeffers and Baptista when they were missing catalogues of sitters
'Oh at least they are getting in the positions' - yes, so did Ade Akinbiyi and Ronnie Rosenthal. They were always in the right position to miss!

Sorry Giroud isn't good enough for Arsenal and never will be.
Who we should have gone for was someone like Falcao, Jovetic or Benzema. Players with pace, strength and technique.
I do not see at all what Giroud contributes to Arsenal's attacking game.

If Arsenal are to have a chance of beating Citeh on Sunday then he needs to be dropped. Arsenal perform better without him, because he can't hold up the ball, awful first touch and no awareness. So why bother playing him? The team was fluid at home to Southampton without him, so keep that going and drop him.
£13 mil Wenger has spent on a squad player just because he's French

[goonersid]

I think the fact that Wenger has already started making excuses for him after only 3 league games and leaving him out of the soton game speaks volumes.
The guy has the same qualifications as Chamakh, ie one good season in a shite league, but once again old wise one took a gamble, which now looks sure to fail.
I agree with babs, 8 goals if we're lucky, maybe 12 if he can notch more than one against the likes of Reading.

[Goonerpath]

Whilst I do not disagree with you, I think we must remain optimistic and have faith in Wenger’s eye for talent. I can admit I had not heard of this Giroud before he joined us but for WENGER to invest 13m in a player he must see something we do not, or are yet to see.

Yes, he has got it wrong in the past, Bendtner, Chamack (free), Park, Jeffers as mentioned earlier, Eduardo though, I do not agree was a ‘failure’ but just incredibly unlucky. At the time of his leg break, we were top of the league he was considered him one of the most clinical strikers in the PL but that’s another story . I’m sure if we took the total spent on these players (who failed) and compare to what was spent to by Man Utd on Berbatov or what Liverpool spent on Carroll for example, it doesn’t come close (I may be wrong) to what we have spent. So I think we need more patience and trust Wenger. Not saying Giroud is even his league, but remember Drogba’s first season after coming from Marseille, people were writing him off too before he took the world by storm. We just need to play to Giroud's strengths, players need to learn his style etc...

I would have preferred a more technically gifted player too, Llorente possibly, technically brilliant and would have been the ultimate irony had we signed him after the goal he scored against Utd, and RVP signing for them...There’s always January!!

[Red Member]

Welcome to the forum Goonerpath

when I saw your first paragraph I thought that it had to be someone new

I also don't think Giroud is probabaly going to be as good as Drogba but I suppose it is possible

[augie]

Am not willing to write off giroud yet and believe it is incredibly harsh for anybody to write him off at this stage. The knobhead in charge certainly hasnt helped him by dropping him last saturday for a game where he was likely to have a real chance to break his goalscoring duck and only somebody as stupid as wenger would make that decision If you ignore the goalscoring aspect for a mo, you would see that he is actually doing quite well for the team imo. The longer he goes without scoring though, the more the pressure will increase and will only add to the chance that it will become a self fulfilling prophesy - fans write him off cos he hasnt scored which only puts extra pressure on him to score which has a negative impact on his game so those same fans can then turn around and claim that they were right to describe him as shit

When the guy plays as shit as the forehead did for most of last season then you can write him off in my book and I still dont believe that he will turn out to be a good buy

[Goonerpath]

Thanks red member

[rigsby]

Well we won 6-1 so ultimately Wenger was proven correct. I also agree with why he did it. Take him out of the firing line for a time and the pressure comes off a little. Must remember Henry was a sub for an awful lot of his first few Arsenal games and he was in a far mroe advanced stage than Giroud.

Patience.

[Babatunde]

Whilst I do not disagree with you, I think we must remain optimistic and have faith in Wenger’s eye for talent. I can admit I had not heard of this Giroud before he joined us but for WENGER to invest 13m in a player he must see something we do not, or are yet to see.

Yes, he has got it wrong in the past, Bendtner, Chamack (free), Park, Jeffers as mentioned earlier, Eduardo though, I do not agree was a ‘failure’ but just incredibly unlucky. At the time of his leg break, we were top of the league he was considered him one of the most clinical strikers in the PL but that’s another story . I’m sure if we took the total spent on these players (who failed) and compare to what was spent to by Man Utd on Berbatov or what Liverpool spent on Carroll for example, it doesn’t come close (I may be wrong) to what we have spent. So I think we need more patience and trust Wenger. Not saying Giroud is even his league, but remember Drogba’s first season after coming from Marseille, people were writing him off too before he took the world by storm. We just need to play to Giroud's strengths, players need to learn his style etc...

I would have preferred a more technically gifted player too, Llorente possibly, technically brilliant and would have been the ultimate irony had we signed him after the goal he scored against Utd, and RVP signing for them...There’s always January!!

I see your point my friend, but am afraid that Wenger's 'eye for talent' disappeared a long, long time ago.
I am not talking about the players so much that Wenger signs as flops - it is more the quality of players that he allowed to let the club miss out on.

I don't wanna rake over old ground, but Dembele for £15 mil was a bloody steal. But no, spend it on Giroud instead.
Signing Giroud and Gervinho for a combined £26 million is a scandalous waste of money, when that £26 million could get you a striker like Llorente, or could be used to bid for a Falcao. Wenger's 'eye for talent' is a thing of the past. Cazrola cost £16.5 mil I read today - so sorry if Mancini can't be given credit for signing Aguero (who I think is value for money) then Wenger gets none for splashing out on Cazorla.

'Eeye for talent' now RVP, he would count as that. How long ago was that? Adebayor that would count too - again though was he not signed in 2006? Who was the last quality player Wenger spotted from relative obscurity? Someone you hadn't heard much of but turned out to be quality?

Those days are long gone my friend, and other managers are now much better at this than Wenger.
I trust what my eyes show me, and the whole of last year at Montpellier despite scoring a fair few, it just reminded me of when Michael Ricketts went on that mental scoring spree: a poor player on a streaky run.

Giroud's problem for me isn't just that he is technically deficient. It's his entire mentality. Wenger himself has alluded to the fact Giroud cannot cope with the pressure at this level!
Giroud is missing because he is 'freezing up' as it is said. He isn't at wee Montpellier anymore, banging in goals against the likes of Evian, Valenciennes and Lorient. He's in a proper league now where there are expectations and he cannot cope with that, which is why he belongs at West Ham or Reading, where they'd be merely glad to survive in the league.
The fact that Giroud shits himself the minute it comes around means he is not cut for the big-time, he is cut for a Montpellier or a Siena.

I have absolutely no idea what he is doing at Arsenal, other than this being yet another case of Wenger deliberately choosing to overpay for a mediocre player, just as a means of using Arsenal to pump cash back into his beloved French football. Sorry but I am finding it so suspicious how Wenger continues to spend ludicrous amounts on French league players who most people know aren't good enough (Gervinho, Giroud) and overpaying for players who were available for peanuts months before he splashed out on them (Koscielny was available for £1 mil, Wenger ends up paying Lorient £10 mil about eleven months later.)

Like I said, we should have gone in for a Benzema, a Jovetic, a Falcao or a Lewandowski. Proper players who have shown their worth in big games in proper leagues and consistently too. Not one season wonders from Montpellier FFS.

[Babatunde]

Whilst I do not disagree with you, I think we must remain optimistic and have faith in Wenger’s eye for talent. I can admit I had not heard of this Giroud before he joined us but for WENGER to invest 13m in a player he must see something we do not, or are yet to see.

Yes, he has got it wrong in the past, Bendtner, Chamack (free), Park, Jeffers as mentioned earlier, Eduardo though, I do not agree was a ‘failure’ but just incredibly unlucky. At the time of his leg break, we were top of the league he was considered him one of the most clinical strikers in the PL but that’s another story . I’m sure if we took the total spent on these players (who failed) and compare to what was spent to by Man Utd on Berbatov or what Liverpool spent on Carroll for example, it doesn’t come close (I may be wrong) to what we have spent. So I think we need more patience and trust Wenger. Not saying Giroud is even his league, but remember Drogba’s first season after coming from Marseille, people were writing him off too before he took the world by storm. We just need to play to Giroud's strengths, players need to learn his style etc...

I would have preferred a more technically gifted player too, Llorente possibly, technically brilliant and would have been the ultimate irony had we signed him after the goal he scored against Utd, and RVP signing for them...There’s always January!!

Berbatov won the Golden Boot and 2 PL titles with Man United.
If that's what a 'flop' is in your books, then I'll take a flop of that calibre all day long my friend....
Oh and please can ppl not excuse it with 'my granny would score loadsa goals in that ManYoo team bla bla etc'...because am pretty sure Arsenal create just as many - if not more - chances than ManYoo do so any main Arsenal number 9 should be scoring a minimum of 20 goals a season at least.

[Babatunde]

Well we won 6-1 so ultimately Wenger was proven correct. I also agree with why he did it. Take him out of the firing line for a time and the pressure comes off a little. Must remember Henry was a sub for an awful lot of his first few Arsenal games and he was in a far mroe advanced stage than Giroud.

Patience.

'Patience'? Is 8 years trophyless not enough patrience? Or will you tell me that 'real fans have patience'!
Why is is that the apologists ALWAYS trot up that defunct Henry line? I'll just remind you, because you seem to not be getting it: Thierry Henry was the TOP SCORER FOR THE WORLD CHAMPIONS AT THE AGE OF 20. That is correct, he won the World Cup, top scorer for his country despite not playing up top as main number 9 and got a big money move to the mighty Juventus that didn't work out. So everyone knew Henry had it in his locker.
Bergkamp same, the same man who was a Dutch international and had smashed it in Europe with Ajax, earning a big money move to Inter. That did not work out.

Everyone already Knew how good they were, it was a matter of coaxing it out of them.

Giroud has NO pedigree. Nothing. Top scorer for Montpellier in Ligue 1?

Oh and Wenger was 'right' to drop a guy who needed maximum confidence and badly needs a goal in a piss easy game against a shambolic team, at home? Ok fine I can accept that.

Therefore having seen that Arsenal's best attacking performance all season has come in a game where Giroud had almost no involvement, is it therefore fair to infer that Giroud weakens Arsenal's attacking game more than he contributes?

Because Arsenal have scored a total of 4 goals in all games Giroud has started in (Giroud scored none of these of course but does have 1 assist)...and have scored 6 goals in games Giroud has not started.

Or will your argument change?

P.S: Augie. Please mate, see what I said. BEFORE Giroud had even kicked a ball for Arsenal, I said that I watched him several times at Montpellier, and that he is shit and not good enough for Arsenal. Wish ppl would stop claiming this is on the basis of a few games for Arsenal. It isn't. It's on the basis of a year at Montpellier.
What I am finding hilarious though, is those who called Giroud 'class' on here (I will go dig out the quotes) despite having never seen him kicked a ball. ASpparently, it's ok to do that as it makes you a 'real fan' (whatever that is and whoever arbiters that definition)...

[1989]

Chaps, nobody needs to convince me of Arteta's merits. I was frowned up for him being my first choice midfield signing about 3 years ago on here when I called him a complete midfielder. He has excelled ever since he joined. Look what happened as soon as he was out last season. But in the same way that top quality midfielders like he and Gerrard can do the DM role, they are restricted by that and are far more effective when they have a natural controller in there alongside them. I want Mikel Arteta box-to-box, like he was for Everton, and like last season. I want him smashing it in like he did at Wigan and against Man City at home. I don't want him held back by our lack of investment.

Don't know about box-to-box, Arteta doesn't seem to have the pace and intensity to play the role (Diaby is our box-to-box CM). You say we need a controller, Arteta is that for me. He's more Alonso than Gerrard.

[clockender1]

[
I see your point my friend, but am afraid that Wenger's 'eye for talent' disappeared a long, long time ago.
I am not talking about the players so much that Wenger signs as flops - it is more the quality of players that he allowed to let the club miss out on.

like Mata for 25 million quid, who scored one goal less than Walcott last year, yes ?

And the reason we didn't sign Benzema for 30million quid in 2009 was that we had RvP who cost us 3...