Olivier Giroud

I agree.
To have both the France first and second choice striker with Welbeck as third choice is what we need.
Also, with our injury record, we need at least three competent players for such an important position.

Fact is Welbeck is first choice over Giroud now.

That’s true but I’m not sure why that is.
Welbeck works harder for the team but if you need a goal and it’s a choice between Giroud or Welbeck coming off the bench I would prefer Giroud.

The fact that both those two have been our first choice strikers for the last few seasons is a clear illustration of Wenger’s lack of ambition in the transfer market.

Giroud is too good to be second choice and not good enough to be first choice.

Last season he was a striker displaced by a winger in an experiment who probably thought he could fight and get his place back (which he did) so you could see why he’d stay. Wenger has tried Podolski, Walcott, Sanchez, Welbeck and even Sanogo at times when Giroud was fit and now he’s finally spending a club record buying a legit centre forward so he’s definitely not getting that place back.

If it ends up that he’s somehow going to be kept against his will to be the guy that comes on at 75 minutes to maybe get a header, I doubt he’s the type to give it his all then.

You really can’t expect players this good to stick around for that. You’re basically asking him to waste the next season of his career when it could be the most important one. It’s not like all big clubs have forwards at this level to sit on their bench. Maybe Morata at Madrid but even then he was only there this season, before that it was nobody. Mostly you’re looking at youngsters like Jesus, Inehacho, Rashford, Batshuayi, Janssen who understand that they’ll have limited minutes. Whenever you have a senior player come at a club purely as a backup it rarely lasts (Ba, Remy, Begovic for example at Chelsea).

I’d be more convinced of the benefits of making Sanchez see out his final year if we could sell Giroud for 25m and use Alexis as our 2nd choice forward.

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Or sell Giroud and buy Dolberg for £30m.

Great post though.

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I really can understand Giroud’s appeal as a Plan-B player but I honestly think some people overrate his position and impact.

What we need are better Plan-A players in both the first team and on the bench.

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I feel Giroud is, if anything an equal victim of our poorly managed team.

How often have we seen him come off only for us to start trying crosses. Or vice versa. He was never a fit for the archtypal Arsenal striker anyway.

Cracking beard though so, at least he has that.

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Would love us to have an understudy ST again, a Vela of sorts. Someone that has no pressure (not much), however is given the benefit of simply learning the role and letting them run with it.

Not sure if the likes of Malen or Nkeitah? are at a level that they can step up to this sort of role yet? Otherwise, Dolberg would be my pick if we wanted to be outlandish and spend money instead.

Giroud seems to be somewhat of a marmite player, you either love him or hate him.

I think as some have alluded to, to live up to the expections of some of the strike force we’ve had over the last 25 years is an almost seemingless impossible task to win some fans over.

In general, I would imagine most would always prefer the grace, speed and elegance in a striker. Someone who makes it look so easy. That’s what guys like Wright, Bergkamp and most noteably Henry were able to incapulsate so well.

When you compare Giroud to that kinda calibre, you’re always going to look pretty subpar in comparsion. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been of use to the club.

Remember when he joined and he didn’t score for something like the first 8 or 9 games and looked seemingly to be a flop? It took his time to find his feet and once the first goal came, he’s been scoring on a very solid basis.

As I’ve mentioned before, I can totally understand the frustration many have with him, and he has had periods of inconsistencies with his goal scoring, but if you rewind back to 5 years ago, and then think of the expections we would’ve had for him, I think he turned out to be a way better signing than many woukd’ve imagined. And let’s be honest, pretty much every player at the club, bar probably Alexis, goes through patches of inconsistent runs, so I think it’s been unfair at times to lay so much of the blame solely on Giroud, when for a long time, he was realistically our only striker.

98 goals, and god knows how many assists. Willing to track back and defend. Sure, he’ll never be highly acclaimed in a club that has a rich catalogue of phenomenal strikers, but I feel at some point, will look back at some moments and be grateful for his time he gave to us, and being part of the group that ended our long drought without a trophy.

Not to mention, one heck of a fetching beard :giroud:

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If we get Lacazette, it will mean Giroud will be the most experienced number two striker in the PL.
It would be a shame to sell him when we actually have a reason to keep him, and the main reason Wenger bought him was as cover for the striker position.

Really?

I’m not sure too many of Giroud’s critics hate him, most simply feel he isn’t good enough to be the unconditional, undisputed striker for a club like Arsenal.

When it comes to Giroud I rarely hear any sort of hatred directed his way, if anything he’s earns more respect from fans than he deserves. You aren’t wrong though Giroud has entirely lived up to expectations, in the half a decade since we signed him we haven’t once competed for the title, and that’s what you get when you pay sixteen million euros for a striker and don’t try to bring in genuine competition for the role.

Now this isn’t entirely Giroud’s fault and the problem lies with Wenger, but at the same time we really need to stop acting like if we lost Giroud it would make any sort of difference to our ambitions for next season.

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Remember when we all wanted him to “Sign the ting”?

I do, unfortunately.

Giroud has been a fantastic club servant, always works his ass off on the pitch, basically never complains off the pitch even when benched for extended periods, and has been a key contributor to our FA Cup runs. He also has serious limitations that don’t show up in the goals/assists stats: He is very static and doesn’t do much to unsettle a defense with his runs and movement, which hampers the game of players like Alexis (who thrives on making darting runs into the middle when the CBs are pulled away by the CF) and Ozil (who thrives on playing balls to mobile forwards), and he also offers very little on the counter. With all respect to Cristo’s excellent breakdown above, no matter what the goals per minute stats say, I will go to my grave believing that Costa is a much better CF than Giroud for these reasons.

He should always have been a super squad player here, starting when our better CF needed rest, occasionally playing in a two striker system against other teams parking the bus, and coming on late in matches when chasing a goal. He should have been what Dzeko was for Manchester City. But we never found our Aguero.

In the end, its not his fault that he was instead called upon to carry the load of the starting CF because Wenger was too much of a ditherer and cheapskate to find a better 9 at some point in the last five years. He has played his ass off and done his best under the circumstances and he should be remembered fondly by the supporters if his time at the club is coming to an end.

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As much as I think we should keep Giroud because he would be great as cover for Laczette, if we bought Mbappe, then we could sell Giroud and Perez and just have Welbeck as third choice behind the best striker pairing in Europe.

Everton want to sign Olivier Giroud and will look to persuade him to become their latest high-profile recruit. [@_pauljoyce] #afc

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Replacing Lukaku with Giroud is an uprgrade tbh.

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We know Everton have money, who still thinks £20M is ‘fair’. Honestly who gives a toss what’s fair in business.

If we’re selling our secure assets we have to extract as much money has possible from buyers. Learn some lessons from Aulas ffs. There clear interest there, if Giroud goes for anything less than £30M we’ve been had

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They might just be spending the incoming money from Lukaku. Clubs like Lyon and Marseille or other foreign teams are never going to spend that amount.

30 million seems slightly high, 20 million low… I really don’t see the point of selling him honestly unless someone really wants him and we have clear plan for striker options after Laca… if Sanchez leaves (?), I really don’t want to go into next season with Laca, Welbeck, and Perez as our only striking options.

Ha reading their rumour thread on him is madness. Some thing he’s isn’t good enough for them.

This one poster below at least has the sense to acknowledge he would be great for them,

Giroud is comfortably a better striker than Lukaku. Lukaku is a better goalscorer and is quicker in a straight line, but Giroud is better at quite literally every other aspect of the game.

Not even sure how that is a controversial statement?

Lukaku is good enough for any side looking to play swift counter-attacking football. He’s the perfect striker for it. So he’s “good enough” for anyone playing that way - that would include Barcelona if they suddenly decided to do that.

However, we don’t set up to play that way, neither do Chelsea or any other top club in England or Spain, therefore he’d be a square peg in a round hole.

That’s why Giroud would improve us - he’d be perfect for the way we set up to play, and especially great for the development of a young box-to-box player named Davies and an inside forward in Lookman.