Printable View
Has anyone noticed that recently Giroud has become more confident and effective in front of the goal ? Every time he scores ,he looks up and raises his hands up as to thank a certain Divinity .
Has he been converting to any religion ? Has his new faith increased his confidence ?
I have found he has become a different player from the one we signed .
I have always liked him as a player, bit rough around the edges, but a decent player. Sometimes I wonder if we expect too much because we went through a period of being spoilt by having the very best strikers out there? We had Wright, Bergkamp, Henry. There must be a hell of a lot of pressure on anyone coming in that position to live up to what has gone before them.
Fair play to the guy, he is working hard and is getting the goals.
My guess. New club. New team mates. New manager. New system. It's tough. Summer came, Welbeck arrived, Giroud is still Wenger's first choice. That must give him bags of confidence and make him feel more settled. Prior to that the media was always full of who was coming in to replace him, so were most of the fans. This is still true but to a much lesser degree. Moving to one of Europe's big clubs as a relatively unknown player compared to, say, Falcao ( :haha: ) means it has taken time for him to relax into his game. Prior to that it was the anguished look every time he didn't stick it in the net. Plus he's over some big injuries. It's going well for him at the moment and we're benefiting from it. If he can continue to improve and eventually sees off that mythical big name striker we are always rumoured to be bringing in then he'll have done really well.
Also the point about general expectations in comparison to Wright, Bergkamp, Henry, very true. Anyone would face a challenge trying to fill those boots.
Olivier is a very likable player . He might have the bad luck of replacing fantastic players and has raised the fans expectations but he is doing a decent job for us . Look at RVP , so called world class striker , he is struggling now and I wouldn't wish him in our team with his current form.
Not his biggest fan but can't fault the work he's doing right now.
When he's on it, he can be a great asset.
I don't know the stats, but it always seemed like he racked up a fair number of assists for a centre forward, even before this spell, when he was being somewhat maligned.
I've always quite liked him. He seems to have stepped up a gear this season though and he's become very clinical in his finishing. I had two big gripes about him prior to this season, one of them was his mobility, he's not quick...but he's no slouch either so he definitely seems to have made improvements in that area. My other gripe was that he wasn't clinical enough in the big games, he's put that myth to bed this season by scoring against all the big teams. I think he's an important player for us and his record of 10 in 18 this season is pretty top notch TBF.
He's very skilful too and works well with our creative players.
Oh and any doubts about whether Welbz would bench him have been put to bed, right now Giroud is clearly our number 1 striker and he deserves to be too.
Big fan of Ollie, me.
I think he's vital to the way we play, a focal point in attack. He's great at attacking the ball too so he's vital at set pieces. We're noticeably more fragile at the back when he's absent.
He's good enough for our normal fight for 4th with teams that haven't moved from their stadiums with the promise of European domination or with our spending power.
However, if we REALLY are trying to compete for P.L or C.L then ask yourselves would he get in the City, Chelsea, Bayern, Madrid or Barca teams. We have too many players like this & this is why we don't & can't compete & also why we struggle to finish of pub teams after giving ourselves a lead.
He's had a lot of unfair criticism by dint of not being Henry or Bergkamp. His goals/game stats are improving season on season.