« C’est un super club, un entraîneur français, et il y a mon pote Lolo (Koscielny) qui joue là-bas»

He refers to Kos as "my man Lolo" 🙂
Along with us being a super club, with a French manager, having Lolo here is a plus in his eyes.
Wonder if Kos could do a Per and persuade him to join?

These connections do count for some players plus I haven't seen him linked with any of the clubs who would blow us out of the water.
I reckon as long as he doesn't storm it at the Euros he's within our budget.

giroud and podolski isn't anything close to the recipe for first team improvement that i had in mind this offseason. it looks more like a contingency plan for van persie's departure.

What if it isn't a contingency plan?
Keeping Robin supplemented by Podolski and Giroud would be a marked improvement on what we had at our disposal this season?

I'll admit that Giroud's only interested me since I saw him play twenty minutes for France against Iceland on Sunday (bit of a rash judgement 🙂) so I could be making a big mistake in thinking that he could be an answer to some of our problems.

He had a damn fine twenty minutes though - a game changing sub.

Sounds like you're going to have to fight Nela for him.

😆
Nope, he's too square jawed, he's got beady eyes as well.
All Nela's.

spaceman spiff wrote:

Comparing him to Carroll is, to be honest, ridiculous though. He's a much better footballer.

Have to say I don't really see the resemblance either. Giroud has a bit of technique and at least a basic understanding of the game around him. All I've ever seen Carroll do is bang into people with his arse to physically pave way for the ball.

Giroud looks like a more agile Gomez to me. I'm not a fan of that type either to be honest but it would be nice to have the option in the squad if we want to hold up the ball. He has a pretty good idea of how to score a goal from outside of the box too. Most of our players don't.

Personally I think we should sign Dempsey instead if we're looking at forwards though. He's a better player, I don't think he'd cost much more than Giroud and he's been doing the business for years in Premier League.

Dempsey would be a great signing, could be Arteta type infuential, but would he play behind the striker or on the left

We could definitely do with a good target man. If Giroud is that, and if he's mobile and good in the air, then get him in asap.

Wenger usually likes to have a tall keep-the-ball-up type of player as a plan b option. With neither Chamakh nor Bendtner working out, it seems logical to sign Giroud. Not saying we will, how would I know, but it's not at all surprising. And it shouldn't affect RvP's position in the squad.

You guys should watch France's recent friendly against Iceland. He was brilliant in setting up 2 goals.

kamikaze wrote:

giroud and podolski isn't anything close to the recipe for first team improvement that i had in mind this offseason. it looks more like a contingency plan for van persie's departure.

If we could keep RVP they'd be 2 additions I'd be very happy with. We need a back up striker and we need a better left wing forward with a few goals in him. We'd still need re-enforcements elsewhere but I try to take each signing on its own merits because we'll never do enough over all and at this stage it naive to think any summer will see some sort of revolution.

Keeping RVP and Walcott, the signing of Podolski and us signing Giroud - for Arsenal to really challenge for the title

We would need to be lucky not to suffer medium to long term injuries to Sagna, Arteta, Wilshere, Song, Sneezey, Kos, TV and Mertesacker.
We would also need real improvement from at least two of AOC, Gervinho, Ramsey, Coquelin.
Defensive structure throughout the team to improve our defensive record by about 15 goals.

In other words - we would need massive luck, along with better than expected performances from quite a few players.

First and foremost it would depend on seeing exactly how good Giroud and Podolski really are in English football.

Timbo wrote:

First and foremost it would depend on seeing exactly how good Giroud and Podolski really are in English football.

Hmm. We'd don't have time for indefinite adaptation periods.
Physically both should be already strong enough, and durable, after that it's all in the mind.
Why am I'm talking as if we've actually signed Giroud?

Regarding kagawa I don't see why we should have one playmaker who is relied on to create chances. In our most successful era we had bergkamp, pires henry and ljungberg all forwards capable of scoring as well as creating. Thus we need more goal scorers like giroud without having to rely on one guy to create (cesc era) as we have seen it failed

SamDaGooner wrote:

Regarding kagawa I don't see why we should have one playmaker who is relied on to create chances. In our most successful era we had bergkamp, pires henry and ljungberg all forwards capable of scoring as well as creating. Thus we need more goal scorers like giroud without having to rely on one guy to create (cesc era) as we have seen it failed

Pretty much everyone was creating chances except for our AMs this season. Its a problem position.

Word on the street/french radio is that we've had an offer accepted by Montpellier for Giroud.

For those questioning Montpellier's decision to agree to a deal before the Euros, Giroud has forced their hand a bit by stating that he wants to play in England, and nobody better than us are showing any (reported) interest. Also, Giroud is 2nd choice behind Benzema so he probably won't have an opportunity to really shine at the competition anyways.

No idea how much money has been offered.

Every team should have a big lump of a striker.

That poor horsie's reputation has really suffered since it started getting mistaken for Andy Carroll.

If he's here to be 2nd choice, I guess that's alright. But underwhelming as ever though and he's taken a while to produce a single good season in pretty poor French league.

I think he's a late bloomer more than anything. He played in Ligue 2 just two years ago.

I'm sure he is, I'm just never going to get what I want in this or any transfer window really (ie. A top quality, relatively proven player).

Klaus wrote:

That poor horsie's reputation has really suffered since it started getting mistaken for Andy Carroll.

😆

I can't stop laughing at that "he smells blood" post that you wrote a few weeks ago.

Hilarious.

Don Pacifico wrote:

I'm sure he is, I'm just never going to get what I want in this or any transfer window really (ie. A top quality, relatively proven player).

Poor Podolski, never gets a mention cos he signed up too quick!

Hope this guy could be the technically acceptable strong-ego'd Chamakh we never had, or the Bendtner with a first touch we never had. He looks it.

If so he'd be a great asset. We really need a proper forward who can come off the bench and work his socks off to make an impact when our regular options have a bad day. A target man who can jump and strike the ball, with a bit of cunning and scrappy-goal-iness would be ideal, but confidence, ability and work rate are the essential traits.

I see for some reason he's been linked on a few sites today with QPR.
I think not.

I'm jumping on board this left foot army we're building.

Don't know what to think of this.

He'd be a great replacement for Chamakh, but knowing this is Arsenal we're talking about, he's more likely to replace Robin.

Well, if the rumours of Chamakh going in the opposite direction are anything to go by, there's a big indication of the thinking behind this move.

And on that basis, I'd be behind it.

i just want change for change's sake. the management have eroded any enthusiasm i had left over the past few windows.

least it'll be a new face to moan about eh?

He's a good player. You'll all get to see a glimpse of what he'll offer over Chamakh in the latter parts of today's match.