Olivier Giroud - Another Alan Smith or "Le Chapman"?

[SteveO 35]

Where's the old mythical good shift today. Jenkinson and Walcott have both flung good balls into the box today and old 50 pence head isn't within 10 yards of the box

[Barriecuda]

I was a big big advocate of Giroud early in the season, even with his sort of slow start. He can put in a good shift but it's been too few and far in between. Disappointed. He needs to get tougher, enough smiling and complaining to the ref. Get a bit of a snarl and get mean in front of net, use that massive build.

[highburyJD]

I wanted him to do well and gave him a chance, but he just isn't good enough in our formation. I would even go further and say he flat out isn't good enough for Arsenal, even on the bench.

damn - what happens when you don't give a player a chance?
you've completely 100% written off a player three quarters into his first season in England
and you consider that giving him a chance??
Unbelievable

[markyp]

ask a supporter of any other team if they'd take Giroud and you'd get laughed at.to think that he will come good next season is as ridiculous as any chavski supporter thinking that Torres is gonna get back to his best,it anit gonna happen,you are deluded if you think so,Giroud isnt good enough for Arsenal end of

[richpye]

I'm still convinced Giroud can make it in the Premier League. For me it's my same old argument, asking him to be the only Striker in our team (used as a Striker) just isn't right.

Look at how Everton (Everton FFS those of little money) have bled Mirallas into the Premier League. They still have Jelavic and Anichebe up front and have been able to bleed him in bit by bit.

At pretty much every stage during Wenger's reign we have had 3 strikers with some undeveloped talent around the fringes of the squad. The current situation just doesn't work. We have so many attacking midfielders (many not good enough) and the balance is just completely wrong

[highburyJD]

ask a supporter of any other team if they'd take Giroud and you'd get laughed at.to think that he will come good next season is as ridiculous as any chavski supporter thinking that Torres is gonna get back to his best,it anit gonna happen,you are deluded if you think so,Giroud isnt good enough for Arsenal end of

Giroud must have 14/15 goals - around top ten goalscorers
the Manchester teams have too many strikers, nobody else has the problem
every other Prem team (including the Chelski billionaires you mention) would love to have him in their squad
you are deluded if you don't think so

[northbank123]

ask a supporter of any other team if they'd take Giroud and you'd get laughed at.to think that he will come good next season is as ridiculous as any chavski supporter thinking that Torres is gonna get back to his best,it anit gonna happen,you are deluded if you think so,Giroud isnt good enough for Arsenal end of

Giroud must have 14/15 goals - around top ten goalscorers
the Manchester teams have too many strikers, nobody else has the problem
every other Prem team (including the Chelski billionaires you mention) would love to have him in their squad
you are deluded if you don't think so

You mean Chelsea who can afford to loan out Romelu Lukaku who has scored 13 in 25 PL games for West Brom? Wrong decision imo but even Liverpool felt they could let Andy Carroll go on loan and let's face it he is a far better player than Giroud. Everton and Spurs would probably have him (but certainly not at £12-13m!) and he wouldn't start for either.

As for his goals I don't like over-reliance on stats but he has 9 league goals (15 have 11 or more including Feo and Cazorla). But stripping that away what is it about him that convinces you that he is/will be a good striker for us? Tbh I've not heard anybody try and put forward an actual case for what he offers.

[SteveO 35]

ask a supporter of any other team if they'd take Giroud and you'd get laughed at.to think that he will come good next season is as ridiculous as any chavski supporter thinking that Torres is gonna get back to his best,it anit gonna happen,you are deluded if you think so,Giroud isnt good enough for Arsenal end of

Giroud must have 14/15 goals - around top ten goalscorers
the Manchester teams have too many strikers, nobody else has the problem
every other Prem team (including the Chelski billionaires you mention) would love to have him in their squadyou are deluded if you don't think so

And the guy is not a WUM........honestly?

Can I ask the MODs again to keep an eye on this sort of crap. This rates alongside Red Member's claim that Denilson would have to be an automatic first choice when he returns from loan

[highburyJD]

You mean Chelsea who can afford to loan out Romelu Lukaku who has scored 13 in 25 PL games for West Brom? Wrong decision imo

so you (and everyone else)DON'T think Chelski can 'afford to' loan Lukaku. The fact that w all agree that was the wrong decision rather undermines your point doesn't it?
I'd start Giroud ahead of Torres, so that's playing half the time.

but even Liverpool felt they could let Andy Carroll go on loan and let's face it he is a far better player than Giroud.

Liverpool loaned Carroll because Rodgers doesn't like crosses, making him useless. They still had to go out and buy a striker in Jan. IMO Giroud is the better, more complete, player. Not sure where 'far better' comes from... Carrol's decent 15odd goal Championship promotion season? His pre-Liverpool scoring streak of a dozen?
Can't think of anything else he's ever done...

Everton and Spurs would probably have him (but certainly not at £12-13m!) and he wouldn't start for either.

I wasn't talking about cost - I was responding to this

ask a supporter of any other team if they'd take Giroud and you'd get laughed at

silly point. 'Any' other team. Not any top 6 Prem side... Sperz desperately need a striker, Greedybarndoor is delivering his standard second season shite. Dafoe is a finisher and nothing else - AVB needs a striker who will bring the monkey into the game as much as pos, I think Giroud would start for Sperz. Toffee's have been playing Anichebe who reminds me of Kevin Campbell, unvelievable work rate and strength, will run through walls for you. But technically limited. Jelavic's good goal yesterday may signal a return to form but he's been terrible most of the season. Giroud would have got plenty of games for Everton, especially at home.

As for his goals I don't like over-reliance on stats but he has 9 league goals (15 have 11 or more including Feo and Cazorla). But stripping that away what is it about him that convinces you that he is/will be a good striker for us? Tbh I've not heard anybody try and put forward an actual case for what he offers.

Ultimately he will live and die on his hold up play, assists and flick ons.
For Montpellier his ability to stop, go, shift and hit, was more pronounced - he scored like that v Newcastle at home.
Need to see more of that + more long range shooting. He is decent at both.
He defended brilliantly v Bayern.
Giroud has linked well with Podolski and Gibbs - I feel his best play has been from right to left.
His goals often come from right sided crosses (I know Podolski has set him up from the other side too - WestHam away for example) and his assists are for left sided players.
He's a good finisher with good hold up play. Just what teams playing 4-2-3-1 need from their striker.
I expect him to improve a lot next year.

[begeegs]

I wanted him to do well and gave him a chance, but he just isn't good enough in our formation. I would even go further and say he flat out isn't good enough for Arsenal, even on the bench.

damn - what happens when you don't give a player a chance?
you've completely 100% written off a player three quarters into his first season in England
and you consider that giving him a chance??
Unbelievable

As others have pointed out, I just don't feel that he is good enough. It doesn't mean that I am not going to support him, but in this formation, we need a mobile playmaker. That is how we play. Giroud is not this player. Will he improve? I think that it will be hard to when he is coming from the bench, which is what I will expect him to be doing next year when Wenger goes out and buys a striker. There are some good ones available as well.

I think that I read statistics which said that his scoring ratio per game (something like 27%) is worse than Torres (just) and his shots-to-goals ratio is also not very good. He has 9 league goals this term and a decent assist record for a forward, but all too often play breaks down with him. I think that we have suffered this year by not having a good centre-forward.

I wonder how Podolski would have fared if he were given the chances that Giroud has had..

However, in his defense, I would say that he has suffered more abuse here because of our inability to defend as a team. Had we been able to do this, I think that there would be less of a focus on him.

[donaldo]

I'm still convinced Giroud can make it in the Premier League.

I agree he would fit in perfectly at Fulham Stoke or Sunderland.But he is nowhere good enough for a top 6 team which we are

[northbank123]

Ultimately he will live and die on his hold up play, assists and flick ons.
For Montpellier his ability to stop, go, shift and hit, was more pronounced - he scored like that v Newcastle at home.
Need to see more of that + more long range shooting. He is decent at both.
He defended brilliantly v Bayern.
Giroud has linked well with Podolski and Gibbs - I feel his best play has been from right to left.
His goals often come from right sided crosses (I know Podolski has set him up from the other side too - WestHam away for example) and his assists are for left sided players.
He's a good finisher with good hold up play. Just what teams playing 4-2-3-1 need from their striker.
I expect him to improve a lot next year.

I don't really fancy dissecting your post sentence by sentence but the assertion he's a good finisher is laughable - he shits his pants every time he gets in behind and skews his shot and/or hesitates too long allowing a defender to get back. Most of the time he just leathers the ball as hard as he can regardless of whether it's 15 yards out or 40 yards out.

It's all airy-fairy "he links well with..." type statements with no substance behind it.

As you say he'll live and die on hold up play, assists and flick-ons. Well imo his movement is poor and he doesn't show enough for the ball and when he does his touch often lets him down, he has 3 assists in 29 PL games and although I can recall a few nice flicks too often he gives the ball away on the edge of the box with a stupid pre-meditated flick round the corner.

If you don't want to write him off then fine but to say every other team would love to have him and that he's just what somebody in our system needs is a joke.

[officepest]

ask a supporter of any other team if they'd take Giroud and you'd get laughed at.to think that he will come good next season is as ridiculous as any chavski supporter thinking that Torres is gonna get back to his best,it anit gonna happen,you are deluded if you think so,Giroud isnt good enough for Arsenal end of

Giroud must have 14/15 goals - around top ten goalscorers
the Manchester teams have too many strikers, nobody else has the problem
every other Prem team (including the Chelski billionaires you mention) would love to have him in their squad
you are deluded if you don't think so

Really? He wouldn't get anywhere near the first team of City, Chelsea or United. He wouldn't fit at Liverpool and I don't even think he'd get in the spuds team from what I've seen of him.

At best, he needs someone to play off of him to be effective. At worst, he's a workhorse/clogger fit for Sunderland or Stoke.

[markyp]

Giroud seems to be flavour of the month to defend by a certain section here,i really cant see why,you may as well defend Chamakh too in that case as he was as good if not better than Giroud in his first few months and was very unlucky to be squeezed out of the team by a returning rvp,not that id have taken chamakh over rvp but chamakh was doing enough.now chamakh is purely a comedy figure,so much so that west ham didnt really want him but were that desperate for back up that they took him anyway.when we eventually sign a decent Arsenal standard centre forward and Giroud is banished first to the bench then the stiffs then out on loan we will all look back at him in the same vain as Chamakh,just because somebody plays for Arsenal it doesnt automatically make them world class,especially these days.i like others desperately want giroud to suceed but he clearly isnt good enough,two years time we will have forgotten about him and realise indeed he wasnt good enough

[highburyJD]

ask a supporter of any other team if they'd take Giroud and you'd get laughed at.to think that he will come good next season is as ridiculous as any chavski supporter thinking that Torres is gonna get back to his best,it anit gonna happen,you are deluded if you think so,Giroud isnt good enough for Arsenal end of

Giroud must have 14/15 goals - around top ten goalscorers
the Manchester teams have too many strikers, nobody else has the problem
every other Prem team (including the Chelski billionaires you mention) would love to have him in their squad
you are deluded if you don't think so

Really? He wouldn't get anywhere near the first team of City, Chelsea or United. He wouldn't fit at Liverpool and I don't even think he'd get in the spuds team from what I've seen of him.

At best, he needs someone to play off of him to be effective. At worst, he's a workhorse/clogger fit for Sunderland or Stoke.

quick reread please pest...
specifically the bit you didn't embolden - "the Manchester teams have too many striker nobody else has that problem"
and my opinion is still that he's better than Torres
so thats playing half the games for Chelski as Ba's knee condition needs managing
I think AVB would put him straight into Sperz first XI, Greedybarndoor has been awful, Defoe only has eyes for goal
Giroud would help the Monkey so he'd always play
Liverpool, after getting Sturridge in the window, will now pick Sturridge with Suarez off him
So I agree he wouldn't be starter there.
That said they have no other forwards so he would improve their squad.
I excluded the Mancs, still think he plays at least half the time for Chels, Sperz and almost everyone else
but was wrong to say everyone, at Liverpool, just bench