Quote Originally Posted by The Emirates Gallactico View Post
Won't be this window yes, but I think Wenger has made it pretty clear for a while now with his actions that he wants to upgrade on Giroud.

Firstly when he signed Alexis, he made a point of stressing how Alexis could play upfront, something he tried a few times last season but due to how bad things were then, something he couldn't really experiement much with.

He's also prefered Theo up front this season and it's only been our ridicolous injury crisis that has allowed him a way back into the team. The Welbeck signing as well, whilst being a panic buy imo, was also partly influenced by bringing in someone to compensate for Giroud's defiencies.

I think he clearly wants someone with more dynamic movement and pace up front than Giroud but because of factors beyond his control such as lack of availablity he's kind of had no choice but to persist with him. And to his credit, Giroud has always risen up to the challenge and done well for us.

And I wouldn't poo-poo the idead of us getting in a mega star like Lukaku in the summer - the Ozil and Alexis transfers have demonstrated that he's more than happy to spend on ..... ahem ... "super top top quality". And if Man Utd continue their ridicolous summer pursuits of attempting to sign Muller, Neymar and Bale, leaving us a free shot at Lukaku, it's something I can see happening. Won't be a penny under £50 million mind you.


Edit - To add to the earlier point, Wenger also publicly tried to sign Suarez a few seasons back.
I'm not sure on that. Wenger has been saying Giroud is one of the best strikers in Europe and it's not the first time he's said something like this. He believes he has potential and can improve.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...europe-arsenal

Maybe those are just words but if Wenger's actions were clear we'd have already found an upgrade on Giroud. It's really not clear. I think Wenger is indecisive when it comes to Giroud. We signed Welbeck because Giroud was injured remember? That's why it was a panic buy. Plus Welbeck has spent his career on the wings so he can fill in for Ox and Walcott. Also, he said Sanchez can play up front but if he really had him nailed on as our striker, he'd have stuck to playing him up front and signed a winger instead of Welbeck. Or maybe just played Welbeck on the left with Sanchez up front. I wouldn't use Sanchez as an example because Wenger hasn't played him up front since.

Suarez was an opportunity we went for but failed to land him. You can compare it to the Ozil signing. We had Cazorla and Jack for the number 10 role but Ozil was that good you couldn't afford to miss out on such a deal. I believe the same was the case for Suarez because we still didn't sign a striker in that window and we've yet to sign a first team striker to replace Giroud despite the many opportunities. Plenty players have moved that, in my opinion, would be an upgrade on Giroud but I don't know if Wenger feels that way. Does he feel they are that much better than Giroud or has the price tags scared him off? Regardless of price tags, if he felt that strongly about Giroud not being good enough up front, it's kind of crazy to persist with him for this long.