Winter Transfer Speculation

[Power n Glory]

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.

[Power n Glory]

“You can never give up the style of player he is. If you go on the counterattack, of course, he isn’t the kind of player you want. That’s why when we played against Bayern [in October] I chose Walcott because you know you will be more in your half and have to go out quickly. When you dominate games and need a presence in the box, there is no better player than Olivier.”

This quote brings me back to a debate I had earlier about our striker situation. Wenger's idea of needing a presence in the box when dominating games and pinning our opponents back is why we've gone for a striker like Giroud. Why we bought Ade and Chamakh. It's a shift in his attacking philosophy and why I don't buy this argument that the strikers he wants aren't available. You could see it happening when we first started playing 4-5-1 and Henry struggling to play with his back to goal and doing the 'dirty work' as he called it.

[Globalgunner]

Not to Worry. BBC has linked us to Troy Deeney of Watford. Good strategy it will improve us and also do serious damage to a rival.

[KSE Comedy Club]

Not to Worry. BBC has linked us to Troy Deeney of Watford. Good strategy it will improve us and also do serious damage to a rival.

Yeh I saw that too.

Hilarious.

In other news: rumours abound that jack is selling is house - which immediately means he is on his way to citeh

if it is real, I can't say I'm that bothered as long as we take their fucking credit card for all its worth

[selassie]

Not to Worry. BBC has linked us to Troy Deeney of Watford. Good strategy it will improve us and also do serious damage to a rival.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is genuine interest from us, it's worrying.

[Dein-machine]

Wouldnt surprise me - he's much cheaper than Igalho & doesnt score as many goals - definite Wenger buy, an older Welbeck - just what we need.

[The Emirates Gallactico]

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.

I think he knows that Giroud's ultimately not good enough for sustained domination in the league or Europe but capable of eeking out a title or two (hopefully that being this year), which is why he's always been on the look out for an improvement but hasn't made it an absoulte pirority. By all accounts we made tentative inquiries into Benzema this summer and there was also chatter that we asked about Martial but were rebuffed by Monaco who said that he wasn't for sale (it took an absurd bid from Man Utd to get him). I'd be interested to know of these strikers who have moved recently who you consider an upgrade. Benteke? Balotelli? Martinez? Mandzukic? The only ones who'd I consider catergorically better are the likes of Lewandoski, Neymar, Suarez etc ..... who are simply just unattainable for us right now.

True that Suarez was partly opportunisitc but do remember that we had quite publicly been looking for a striker that entire summer. It was well documented that we were on the verge of signing Higuain but our faffing around with Suarez mid way through that deal allowed Napoli to hijack it. Not to mention the numerous other strikers we were constantly linked with that summer (Jackson Martinez).

Yep, Welbeck was only signed because we were literally having to resort to start Sanogo up front ( what a time to be alive) but the point I was alluding is that given how different Welbeck was in style to Giroud, I don't think he was signed to be a temporory replacement till Giroud returned but more I think Wenger hoped that he would eventually displace Giroud, because he had the qualities in a striker that he really wanted, something that never really materialised because Welbeck ........ well he turned out to be a bit crap tbh. The Giroud signing was always an odd one from Wenger. Through most of his history he's never persisted with a slow and cumbersome targetman up front, but instead he's usually gone for fast, dynamic and skilful players, see Thierry, RVP, Wright etc.

And like you allude to, don't take Wenger's praise of Giroud too literally - he does to all his players especially confidence players like Giroud, who has a history of being mentally fragile (see how his form dipped dramatically after Henry's criticism and the newspaper affair story).

[Dein-machine]

Wenger stating that Giroud is one of the best strikers in Europe is the kind of nonsense we expect from him. Now, if those kind of statements turned Giroud into something special with a new bout of confidence then you could accept it but he's said it before about players getting stick in the past & nothing changes. Remember Eboue!!.
Giroud isnt even in the 10 top strikers in the Premier League - let alone Europe. Sturridge, Benteke, Ighalo, Kane, Vardy, Aguero, Costa, Lukaku, Bony, & Martial would all offer us a better option & we could have bought at least 5 of these in the summer if we had wanted to.

[The Emirates Gallactico]

Giroud isnt even in the 10 top strikers in the Premier League - let alone Europe. Sturridge, Benteke, Ighalo, Kane, Vardy, Aguero, Costa, Lukaku, Bony, & Martial would all offer us a better option & we could have bought at least 5 of these in the summer if we had wanted to.

Aguero, Kane, Lukaku and Marital are the only better ones. And out of those only Lukaku is attaianable.

- Sturridge? Don't we have enough injury crocks as it is?
- Benteke?
- Igalho? Decent but too early to say if it's just a purple patch.
- Vardy? See above
- Bony?
- Costa? If we were looking for fat WWE fighter perhaps.

[Özim]

Not to Worry. BBC has linked us to Troy Deeney of Watford. Good strategy it will improve us and also do serious damage to a rival.

Some people might say, it's good to see Wenger recognising a problem area and finding someone for it.