Despite the few misses he's had over his first 3 games I'm still confident Giroud will come good and very happy with some of his other contributions. 1. Hold up Wenger has never really gone for the "big man" up top...I guess Adebayour did some what of a job but Giroud is very robust and seems to time his leaps and body position very well 2. Decent Feet Ok so he missed 2 "sitters" but his lays offs have been on the whole well timed 3. Runs For now this is the strongest part of his game, rarely caught offside he times his runs perfectly and also helps his team mates by creating more space 4. Defending He's won several key headers when defending set pieces, maybe the influence of Bould but that's huge to have another player at the back who can produce that considering how long thats been a weakness for us I think the Southampton game will be really tough, they've given Man Utd and Man City both great games and probably due a point but it's also a team that some of our greats have broken their duct (Henry, Bergkamp, etc)
Giroud has alot of things going for him. He's strong, he's good technically and he's hardworking. The one thing he does lack is that bit of confidence/arrogance that most the top strikers have. I think that's the main reason he took til the age of 24-25 to really make an impact. He lacked a bit of self belief. Take his recent comments: “I am not here to replace Van Persie or to make people forget him. “I am here to bring something different. I don’t have the pretension of saying I will replace him because I have every respect for him as he had an enormous season last year. “I wish him good luck for the future but I need to bring what I can bring without being pretentious to say I am here to replace him. That would be very bad". Podolski on the other hand has this, in fact on the exact same subject you can see the difference in attitude: " I am ready to replace Van Persie. When I'm on the pitch, I can win matches." "This is the Premier League and you must fight and run. This is my style of football - I like the style of Arsenal." A little bit of arrogance can be a good thing. RVP had it, Henry and Pires had it also. Both are great additions to our squad but I still think Podolski is the kind of player that can win you titles.
Southamptons dreadful defence up next. If he doesn't get a goal then, then i'll stop giving him the benefit of the doubt.
He's due a goal for sure but I'm not going to write him off after 3 games. His contribution to the team so far has been good and he's fitting in fine. Remember Henry was a slow burner too
I like his movement and link up play (Poldi's goal wouldn't have happened if Giroud hadn't drawn the CB's away), but i'm really worried about his finishing. He was erratic in France, against inferior defences and keepers.
It took the greatest player ever to pull on an Arsenal shirt 6 games to score for the club, give the guy time, judge him at the end of the season...
Talking of the great man, one of my favourite videos - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nCEXkik6Iuk
Only Rocky was a skillful as Merson in his day. Check out this play on a ploughed field of a pitch [video=youtube;DxEZ4J-wRU4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxEZ4J-wRU4[/video]
Omen! I'm assuming that this is a prediction. If he doesn't turn out to be a legend, I'm going to blame you for jinxing him! I have now heard two pundits calling him the worst signing of the transfer window. I am a lot happier about having him in the team.
