I have no idea what his average is over six seasons other than looking up the stats and using maths to work it out. I'm failing to see your point? You don't like maths? Given that for three of those seasons he has been at Arsenal and the season before he was the French top scorer, I'd say I have a fairly good idea about the player and his scoring record lol. Your right though I only know about the couple of seasons before that (5 and 6 years ago) through having looked up his stats when he joined us. But what is the point your making? I didn't watch him play in the French second division so somehow the statistical facts I'm listing don't count? And if twenty goals a season in all comps is bang average then Rooney is ****ing **** because he's been out scored by giroud in every season giroud has been at Arsenal
In fact I'd be interested to know how many strikers manage to average 20 goals a season in all competitions... I bet it's far less than your thinking.
Goals per appearance over five seasons in ALL competitions Messi 1.06 Ronaldo 1.06 Ibrahimovic 0.77 Cavani 0.68 Falcao 0.68 Aguero 0.65 Gomez 0.64 Van Persie 0.63 Huntelaar 0.60 Suarez 0.60 Benzema 0.55 Pelle 0.55 Lewandowski 0.54 Costa 0.51 Rooney 0.50 Higuain 0.49 Benteke 0.48 Tevez 0.47 Mandzukic 0.46 Giroud 0.44 Rondon 0.42 Balotelli 0.40 Adebayor 0.39 Gomis 0.39 Defoe 0.39 Hernandez 0.37 When you take the context of whether the player has played five full seasons up front, whether he's played for title challengers, whether he's played with top drawer players assisting him, whether he's played in a tough league..... it's not really backing up your assertion that Giroud is 'quality'. Unless your interpretation of 'quality' is better than the average sunday league footballer.
So in response you've got no idea how many players actually manage to average 20 goals a season in all competitions Your new and completely different stat however has giroud sitting within .1 difference of lewandowski, Costa, Higuain, Rooney and Tevez. The ones with a larger margin are mainly the likes of the worlds best strikers. Surely it does back up that he is quality, but not into that top bracket of strikers.... So basically exactly what I said. Thanks
Where has your obsession with '20 a season' come from anyway? Why is that a significant number in your head? We've already established that Giroud hasn't done it in top league football, check. I can show you the actual stats of the rest of that list to show you that loads of them have, check. Are you picking 20 because it's a round number that you like? Does '20 a season' win you the league? If no, then why does 20 matter? If yes, then why aren't we? Giroud is sitting closer in the ranks to Balotelli, Rondon, Adebayor, Gomis, Defoe in that ratio list. But again, you've picked an arbitrary number of 0.1 to decide that anyone within that range is of equal ability. However, you're not going to be swayed so this is pointless. You rate Giroud... somehow. What's puzzling is what you think the issue is with Arsenal overall if you think Giroud is qualiy. The striker position is undoubtedly our weakest area (unless you have more pearls of wisdom about GK, FB, CD, DM, CM, WF?). And you think our striker is quality. So ergo you are of the opinion that our weakest area is still quality. Yet, a team with it's weakest link being 'quality' routinely gets nowhere near the league title or beating anyone of note in Europe. Puzzling. #Giroudisquality #2016/17willbeouryear
20 goals a season came from the fact that he has averaged 20 a season over the last six years. It was a nice easy, round number and factually correct. Why is this number upsetting you so much? If you can show me a list of players who average ~20 a season for the last 5-6 seasons I'd be interested to see it, I'd imagine it's only the top strikers, but it'd definitely be an interesting read if you have the stats Obviously since Giroud is so average approximately half of all strikers will average 20 goals a season You've done exactly what your accusing me of in your next line. Giroud is closer to mandzukic, Tevez and Higuain than Adebayor or Defoe in that list. If your going to moan about me being selective don't do the same thing yourself Yes, I am of the opinion that our weakest area is probably at CF or DM and that despite that Giroud is a quality striker. Not sure why you find that so hard to understand to be perfectly honest. I haven't said I didn't want another striker, I haven't said we couldn't use another striker, I haven't said I don't want an improvement to giroud or different option to Giroud. I've just said Giroud is a quality striker. Get over it
It depends on what a persons definition of a quality striker is. When you're talking about the top European sides then quality equates to the very best in the world, which is relative to the competition. Let's talk about Arsenal, if we're going to refer to quality an automatically first response would be either Sanchez or Ozil. Not saying we don't have other quality players, but Giroud wouldn't be a name I would mention and I doubt any would pick him at the top of their list.
Yeah I disagree with your (or have a different) definition. When I'm referring to a player as a quality player, that isn't interchangeable with world class, or the best in the world
afcftw It really is this simple. We don't need a world-class striker to win the league. We need one that is better than Giroud and on that front, I believe there are plenty that are better than him who would thrive on the service they would get from our midfield and wide players. It's not about getting a big name, it is about getting the right fit for our team. You seem so obsessed with getting a Benzema or a Cavani but these aren't the only strikers in the world who would improve us. And if Wenger can't find one, then what the bleeding hell is he getting paid £8m a year for?
Brunel, It really is this simple. I don't want us to just buy another striker to sit on the books I'd rather we wait and get in a top striker, it's too often in recent years we have quantity and not quality. I'd take a loan striker in the meantime to give a different option to Giroud for sure. But I wouldn't be buying someone who isn't a big improvement on giroud. They don't have to be a big name signing, but it needs to be a top quality player. I haven't mentioned any names so no idea wtf your going on about me being obsessed with benzema or cavani And I'd say the many scouts we pay to find players and our negotiating team who we pay to get the deals done are the ones who we should be questioning what they're being paid for!
Putting 'laugh' smileys in your replies to me? Really? Couple that with your liberal use of 'their', 'they're' and 'there' while simultaneously questioning my maths education and it all seems a bit lame. Either way, moving on slightly... It's clear from your reply above that your definition of 'quality' is fundamentally different from many others. Well certainly mine anyway. To me, if you're going to use the word 'quality' to describe a player who plays for one of the richest teams in the world with a couple of world class players playing for them already... Then 'quality' should mean either one of the strongest players in the team, or one of the strongest players in his position that we would find hard to replace. Giroud is none of those. In my opinion he is one of the most fortunate players on the planet. Paid a kings ransom to do something quite a lot of other less fortunate footballers could do as well, and quite possibly better in many instances. I repeat, if you're the ONLY striker in a 4-2-3-1 system, supplied by Ozil, Cazorla, Sanchez etc and get to play league games, two sets of domestic cup games AND a champions league campaign... If you're that one main striker and ALL you manage is 20 goals in an entire season then that's bang average*. *or quality in your words.
How long would you rather we 'wait' for this mythical top striker? It's been 8 transfer windows so far. Giroud must be insane if he's the best striker available in the last 8 transfer windows. Maybe one of these days he'll show it.
Why would another striker sit on the books if they're an improvement on Giroud? The reality is that a lot of the top top strikers are already at richer and more successful clubs than us. So if that is the case, and there is no way of obtaining them, we need to try and get a striker from the tier below them. The names I mentioned were in regards to players that have widely been labelled as 'world-class' or 'top quality' and one would assume that is the type of player you would want in our side? My apologies if I'm wrong. Your last sentence is essentially exonerating Wenger from any responsibility whatsoever. He has said in the past that the man who manages the club should be the one who has the last say in terms of transfers also. "I am not against having people to help me buy, sell and negotiate because I cannot do it all. But I think the final decision always has to belong to the manager to decide who comes in and who goes out because he is responsible for the style of play and results.”
I always use smileys! sorry if my emoticons offended you! My use of correct spelling and grammar always suffers when I'm using forums as I tend to think as long as the point is put across it doesn't matter, no-one seems to mind the odd grammatical slip. I'm far worse for where, were and we're, than there, their and they're. And would you believe I always found English rather easy and enjoyed a varied use of vocabulary! It's almost like my brain doesn't see the importance in the correct word when one can be read like the other! Anyway, I seem to have gone off an a bit of a tangent! I disagree with your definition as for you a quality player is relative to those around him. Giroud therefor by your definition would be a quality striker if he played for west Brom but not a quality striker because he plays at Arsenal. Likewise what about all the quality players at Barca or Real who wouldn't be considered one of their best but in almost any other team would? I don't however think we will ever quite see eye to eye on Giroud and what quality it is he possesses
Yes, Giroud would be a different planet striker for my Sunday football team, a quality striker for West Bromwich and a rubbish one for Barcelona. Please try and argue otherwise. Your argument seems to be that as long as a striker scores 20, regardless of the number of games it takes, then they're quality. So if Giroud scores 15 league goals in 36 league games this year and 5 CL goals in 8 CL games this year he'd be 'quality' in your eyes. But if we failed to qualify for the CL next year and he again got 15 goals in 36 league games next season he'd no longer be quality because he didn't reach your magical number of 20. That seems to be your logic. Yeah?
Just like most others it was this transfer window I thought we would make our move. I'm disappointed that we haven't added another striker option as I really thought that is the area we needed to add another player. But I recognise sometimes it's not that straight forward and I'd also still rather keep waiting for the right player and get a loan deal in place in the meantime, than panic and go for the wrong player. There's definitely questions to be asked about why we didn't manage to get our targets, and why we didn't have back-up loan type deals that we were looking at in case things didn't go to plan. I've felt like this is the problem often with Arsenal, rather than not going for the players it's the way we go about it that seems to be the problem. Whether it's a problem with the scouts, or our negotiators or something else I don't know.
My point was if we buy another giroud standard striker and then next transfer window the real top quality striker is then available to buy, we end up with people sitting on the books. We had the problem a few years back when our squad was packed with deadwood and it effected us moving for new players. The Bendtner, Denilson... Era. I agree with most of your next two mini paragraphs S for the end bit I agree with wenger, it should be up to the manager to approve any in or out goings. But he should have proper quality scouts and negotiators helping get the deals in place and completed. It feels to me like this might be the area we are lacking.
Ok I will argue otherwise. I disagree. I think a players quality is individual to the player and not defined by those around him. Messi will still be the best player in the world regardless of what team he plays at. His individual quality as a player is not effected by what league he is in, or what team. If I'm the best player at west Brom and move to arsenal and play to the exact same standard I'm not all of a sudden a worse player, I'm just surrounded by better players. The difference is I'm judging Giroud as an individual footballer and your judging him based on other players in our team. I'd say most players who play for the top four teams and manage to play regularly are quality football players. I'd use far more superlatives for the handful of players who stand out within those top teams If giroud gets 1 in 2 in the league and a handful of CL goals then yes I'd consider that the return of a quality player. Not necessarily a world class or team changing player, but quality none the less. As for your obsession with the 20 goal comment you need to give it a rest lol. I made a comment that averaging 20 goals per season over the last six seasons showed his quality and since then you've been banging on about it as if I've made a literal cut off point between what a quality and non quality striker is, it's ridiculous lol
