gonna need to improve his touch and finishing as wellOriginally Posted by fakeyank
He is about to be 25. I just wouldnt hold my breathe, thats all.
gonna need to improve his touch and finishing as well
He is about to be 25. I just wouldnt hold my breathe, thats all.
I disagree with that one. We signed Henry and Anelka before they made a name for themselves. Before the massive price tags. I don't think there are many players that are out there now of that quality but we had our chance. Suarez went to Liverpool for £22m the season we had brought in Chamakh for free but had Ade's transfer fee still in the bank.
Aubameyang was playing in France before he moved to Dortmund. Not sure how we missed him. Same goes for Lewandowski.
We don't even need someone with superstar quality in that position to be effective. Walcott is proving that. In fact, if we are going for grade B strikers, Giroud is the wrong type. I'd rather we took a punt on some of the players that have gone to the mid table clubs like Benteke, Bony, Ba..etc. Iffy players but they had a little more pace up front. Or converted a winger into a striker. Anything but putting the type of striker up front that totally alters our game and approach.
Henry was France's leading scorer in the World Cup winning side and had just won Euros and cost £10.5 million which is probably £20-25 million in football terms in the late aughts. Not super expensive but not what Arsenal was willing to pay, considering Wenger spent the same fee on Eduardo from Zagreb. Up until Ozil, the club's highest transfer fee was on Arshavin at 17 million. The money wasnt there.
Anelka was basically Theo at the same age (much better player).
Aubameyang flamed out at Milan and has hit the ground running this year but was shaky before at Dortmund.
We cant play the hindsight game without understanding what the particulars were at that moment.
And no, we need to aim at the next cusp players but a Ba, Bony, Benteke are really no different than Giroud in footballing levels.
But like I said before, the striker you want cost a lot of money. Speed has high value.
Id rather we scour the world for a guy who is on the brink versus taking chances on guys who arent that much better than what we have. I will say this, I do think our scouting department has fallen off. May be down to money, idk. But its not what it used to be.
Last edited by mastermind84; 10-11-2015 at 08:05 PM.
Bottom line is that Giroud isn't good enough. It's not just his pace, it's his overall lack of ability. Somehow, despite his lack of pace, movement or footballing intelligence we manage to put chances on a plate for him only for him to fuck them up like he did on Sunday. He's average.
it means he has good footballing ability.
Giroud's only problem is his speed.
We paid like £10m for Giroud.
People need to remember that. He's paid it back in spades. He's been a really good signing.
NOTE: The location of this post has been moved and the thread title (which was previously Wenger is Leaving) has been manipulated by a notorious pro-Wenger moderator. What was previously a message that contained no profanity and made a comment on a real life event has now been manipulated by a deliberately provocative title. An old and crude propaganda and censorship technique.
Henry was a snip. Man Utd were paying £19m for Ruud and £30m for Veron. Crespo had gone from Parma to Inter for £35m. Fees were starting to get silly. We paid £10m for Henry but we also paid £13m for Wiltord who was our record signing for ages. But not by much. Overmars was £7m. Lauren cost £7m. Van Bronkhurst cost £8m...what we paid for Henry wasn't a lot compared to what we were paying for internationals and really cheap compared to our rivals.
But the fees is a whole other debate. It's a side matter that's more a distraction. We didn't go for players like Chamakh and Giroud because we were priced out of the market for speedy players. It was a tactical decision. Wenger wanted a more physical team player up top to hold up the ball, be a team player and assist the small attacking midfielders we had around him. The idea was to have everyone scoring from all areas and not depending on just the striker. You hear him say this a lot and he's a fan of that sort of unselfish play. It was all to aid the tippy tappy style and being able to hold the ball in our opponents half. There were plenty of pacy strikers around.
The striker I'm talking about wouldn't have cost a lot of money either. I'm not talking about finding just a superstar. I'm talking about finding a player with pace that can get in behind defenders and mobile enough to help our build up play. Obafemi Martins was around for a while and we never moved for him. Jermaine Defoe is another one. These weren't expensive players. Not grade A players but they were solid players with pace. I'm sure there are plenty of others. I'm thinking of Remy and already mentioned more in my previous post.
Giroud is probably the same level of player as them but the difference is the pace and how he slots into our team. He was bought to support that tippy tappy style and as a result we can't play a lightening fast counter attacking game. I'm comparing style and attributes more than anything else.
Giroud is better than both those guys.
He better than Remy too.
Wenger wants a pacy striker that is actually good. He wants a guy that can also help in our buildup. He dont want wastemen.
You're missing the point Mastermind. Who is better is debatable but I will say I remember having a very similar discussion with you and others about Walcott and you've seen the difference his pace and runs have made to how we can approach games. He's not a Henry but at least has the pace which means we can get back to fast counter attacking football. It only took a few games for people to see how our game shifted tactically with him in the squad.
Now look at Giroud and how he shifts things tactically for us. It goes back to what I was saying about him a part of the tippy tappy set up where we pin our opponents back in their own half and keep the ball. Giroud is far from a Henry also so start asking yourself why we bought him and how we've shifted tactically. Yes, there weren't players similar to Henry on the market or if they were they were pricey. So a player like Giourd who has a totally different game to what we're used to was the next best option? Or a Chamakh? Think about it.
Really?!
I don't think brain cells are a requirement in PL football. I think he's OK, he'll chip in here and there, but he's not THE ANSWER. We need better if we're going to push on.
I still think our squad as is has a chance - Giroud is not average but he's no Aguero. But with people like Ozil and Sanchez around we should be getting plenty of goals. Possibly Ramsey too if he can sort himself out. The concern is they're getting too stretched, particularly if we do drop into the Europa League. They're already looking tired, as the games pile up we could be too stretched.
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