After mixing it with Robert Huth and Ryan Shawcross, could Frenchman Olivier Giroud be the difference in close games this season?
If any football club has been through the rigmarole of the football summer more than any other it is perhaps Arsenal FC. After bringing in experienced international talents in the form of Lukas Podolski and then Santi Cazorla they went on to lose arguably their two best players last season in Robin Van Persie and Alex Song, to Manchester United and Barcelona respectively.
The result has seen an Arsenal side who have undoubtedly steadily improved defensively at the start of the new campaign; conceding no goals despite the absence of Laurent Koscielny and Bacary Sagna is a testament to this fact. Yet the stat that is getting Arsenal fans concerned is the fact that no goals have come in the other direction, as a new look frontline struggle to find that fluidity that Song and RVP in particular seemed to possess at times last season.
First of all we are only 2 games into the campaign so there shouldn’t be too much cause for concern and secondly the other new signing Olivier Giroud could prove to be very important.
In front of goal he has looked a little nervy. His miss against Sunderland was snatchy and the timing of his runs and control in the box looked heavy at times in his 2 appearances so far.
But what he did appear to give was Arsenal a plan B for the first time in a very long time.
The amount of times over the years Arsenal have struggled to grab that necessary late goal and have therefore forgotten all their original training in the art of the passing game and substituted it for the long ball into the box is countless. But in the recent past there has never been a player up there able to mix it with the Premier League’s butchest of defenders.
Bendtner didn’t hack it and Chamakh appeared too weak and whilst Arsenal should probably just rely on their passing game to the very end sometimes you do have to, in the word’s of my former schoolteacher ‘put it in the mixer and hope’.
Giroud showed against Stoke at the weekend, particularly in the first half against 2 of the Premier Leagues biggest, baddest and most bullying centre halves in Robert Huth and Ryan Shawcross, not only that he wasn’t scared of mixing it up but also that he was more than capable and willing to do so.
His strength surprised me and it is that sort of contribution that can win you a flick on header, or lay the ball off into the path of a team-mate or indeed craft glory out for yourself in the closing stages of a big game.
I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point this season Olivier Giroud will be pivotal in the successful utilisation of an Arsenal plan B; which could prove vital in the race for elusive silverware.
What have you made of Olivier Giroud’s mixed performances so far?
image: © ronnie macdonald
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