Quote Originally Posted by Letters View Post
He offered nothing on Saturday but it wasn't a great performance all round. Wenger's done it before, very successfully, but with Giroud out we don't really have time for him to adapt so hopefully he'll get there quickly. Potentially there are plenty of goals in this side but there's not been much evidence of that so far.
Yeah, it's difficult to judge how much of his performance on saturday was down to him? Listening to Wenger's press conference before the Besiktas game [when asked about whether Alexis would get another chance to play CF, and explaining why he brought Giroud on at half time against Everton], he suggested with one of his comments that he set the team up to play a counter-attacking game in the first half, but it looked more like the team were still playing like they had Giroud up front instead, so it didn't really work? That doesn't absolve Alexis of all responsibility of course, but when you chuck in possible fitness issues from the reduced pre-season, and his general newness to everything (new club, team mates, role in the side, league, etc) then I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

On the plus side, things looked better yesterday, even if they're still some way off being perfect, - if we keep showing a similar, steady, game-on-game improvement in terms of understanding and fitness levels, then I don't think we'll have to wait too long before it starts to click? Leicester next, isn't it? That at least is one of the better fixtures we could have hoped for while we're working on it...