French striker Olivier Giroud seemed to divide opinion last season at Arsenal. Some were saying give the striker time, while others were saying the striker was not good enough to lead the Arsenal front line. The France international striker has enjoyed a superb start to the season, scoring three goals in as many games in the Premier League and looking like a player that could lead the line of a major top-flight team. Giroud did score 17 times in 47 appearances and also created 11 goals. That is not bad for a striker in his first year in the Premier League. His price tag of around £10million was a relatively small one compared to other striker’s fees. He impressed me immensely at Montpellier and looked like he had most of the attributes needed for a target man striker in the Premier League. The only attribute that he is missing is pace, but you cannot have everything. He has strength and the ability to finish though. The one thing that he has this season that was missing last season seems to be confidence. The big French international striker seemed to gain confidence from scoring goals in pre-season and that has contributed to his fine start to the Premier League season. Strikers thrive on confidence and without it they struggled to find the net on a regular basis. Giroud showed in flashes his ability to score goals last season, but he also missed a host of chances, despite getting into good positions. The good thing about Giroud is that he never seems to hide and he still got in the positions to miss the chances. The 26-year-old now seems to have found a more clinical edge to his game that has resulted in a good goal return so far this season. What strikes me though is the frightening lack of alternative options to Giroud Arsene Wenger now has in attack. Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski can both play up front, but both are better coming from the flanks. Then there is forgotten man Nicklas Bendtner, whose ego outweighs his ability. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger may have to resort to using Bendtner, despite the Denmark striker desperately looking to move away from the Emirates in recent times. Wenger identified the fact that he lacked forward options by his believed summer transfer targets Luis Suarez, Gonzalo Higuain and Wayne Rooney, the less said about those pursuits the better. Anyway back to Giroud. If the former-Montpellier striker continues in the form he is in at the moment then there is no reason why he should not be considered good enough to front Arsenal’s attack. Obviously he may not continue to score goals as regularly as he currently is, but he definitely looks far more composed and assured in front of goal. It may just be three games into the Premier League season, but Olivier Giroud is starting to prove his doubters wrong.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:30:58 +0000
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