Arsene Wenger has praised the performance of Olivier Giroud after the French striker scored one, and was involved in the other two goals, as Arsenal beat West Ham 3-0 at the Emirates today.
The Frenchman fired the Gunners ahead in first half injury time, combined brilliantly with Aaron Ramsey for the second, and was involved in the move for the third scored by Mathieu Flamini.
But rather than focus on one player, the Arsenal manager said that he was most pleased with the way the team as a whole looked dangerous.
“Giroud had an outstanding game today,” he said. “This is a boy who has played at 22 or 23 in division three. He’s come out and has become an international footballer.
“You need some mental strength to do that because there’s no red carpet there. You have to work hard to get out there and get to the top – you need some special strength.
“At Manchester United he didn’t play and we won, but what is important is that the team plays well.”
Wenger also spoke about how better combination play, and players knowing each other more as the season has developed, have played a part
“I know that all these offensive players have the quality to deliver something special but for us it’s important that the team plays well.
“After, at the end of our movements, what is for sure is that they understand each other much better than six or seven months ago. That makes everybody more dangerous.
“Welbeck came this season, Walcott has been out for a year, Ozil has now adapted. We’ve won eight of the last nine and we are stronger today than we were at the start of the season.
“We dropped off in this league because we won one of six at the start of the season. Today we are a different team. We suffered a lot from the post-World Cup fixtures. Players came back and they weren’t ready to play.”
Loving the look of the league table right now. Amazing what can happen when you start stringing a few wins together!
Hope United and Sp*r s draw, so we have a gap below as well.
1 point off City, 6 points off the lead, looking forward to next season, we are developing a great team.
Why not look forward to the next 11- 16 games instead
I do, especially the Cup.
Though don’t think we will win the League or CL. But believe we can win one of them next season.
You must believe anything is possible this season. We beat Chelsea at home and we are only 4 points behind them. We can win the league this season.
Currently 7 points behind and possibly 10 points, given their game in hand, with 9 games to go. Could be 4 and 7 respectively I agree.
Anything is possible, just not that likely. Would love to get lots of thumbs up by writing something saying that we will do it, but can’t get excited until we get a lot closer. Ask me in 4 games time and let’s see, if we’ve got 12 more points then I will be.
Incidentally nice to see Tottenham bear the backlash for us beating Man U!
Three draws is like two losses and a win. Chelsea are drawing loads of games.
Too bloody right!!!!A couple of new buys,if necessary as we were all saying 3 months ago,but things are looking fino.Up the Arse >:D<
Hope Chelsea gets into a downward spiral until we get three points close to them. Me, I really still have the unnecessary series of draws we get at the beginning of the season in my throat. They just kill our title challenge right away. The reasoning that we still had 30 games to go that it doesn’t matter was completly ludicrous.
Bill and Ted wouldve played some MEEANNNN air guitar to this victory!
Onwards and upwards!!
I have a good feeling we can finish second now. Hope Giroud can show us what he is made of and just has a brace at monaco, I really feel we can do it.
We have chelski at home and they have plenty of games they could drop points in, so if youre going to dream-dream big
Chelski will as you say drop a couple of points but Arsenal on the other we will win every single remaining match and on 16 may we will go to Man united and at that point we only need three points to win the league. chelski will lose that day and we smash united with another danny welbeck winner making us the league winners. Big enough? Haha. If only..
it can happen……dreams can come true!
if we dare to “ask”, you never know, we may be……. “given”?
Have that same feeling pal. Lovely feeling around the team at the moment. The fact that Wenger is returning to Monaco leads me to believe that something special can happen. I think we might just go there and produce a night that will be talked about for years.
Don’t mean to be an arse, but seriously man — these lofty expectations are part of the reason why after the last Monaco game everyone turned on our manager. Why can’t we admit we’re probably going to lose. Is that really so unrealistic? To say that just means when we inevitably fail everyone will be pissed again. There’s no way we’re beating a team of Monaco’s stature by 3 at their place. I dare to dream too but I’m realistic when I say we’re incredibly likely to lose the tie. If after we lose you read back on these comments… Read more »
Is it so ‘ludicrous’ to suggest that we can do do to Monaco in their back yard what they did to us in theirs?
Who watches sport to “admit we’re probably going to lose”
temper expectations in your own life, you’re “probably never going to be a millionaire”
but when it comes to Arsenal, our sweet, lovely Arsenal, never stop dreaming.
A bad start to our season with the cunts from Chelsea winning each and every game at the start meant that we were too far away. Just a point behind City now. We should go on a winning run, collecting more than 20 points from the last nine. We have Liverpool, Chelsea and Man United as the more difficult fixtures. We should get at least four points from them. I believe, we can finish second! Arsene also said that we have to believe to beat Monaco, quite true. A quick goal like the one we had in Bayern two seasons… Read more »
Giroud always responds after being left out whether it be rested or possibly dropped. The occasional tactical leaving out of Giroud by Wenger could reap great benefits. Let’s hope Ollie is fired up to make amends against Monaco, knowing his temprament you can see him having another cracker.
what a night would be if giroud scores his first hatrick for the club in monaco game .
Kudos sir Wenger! Salute!!
I can’t remember us being this loaded in the attacking department in the past nine years. The combinations are a joy to watch.
Some weeks ago (when we lost to Soton) fourth place looked an uphill task; now only a brave man would bet against us upstaging City.
We can now see that our season was ruined by nothing else but injuries.
Here is to a sustained title challenge next season.
Ruined by nothing but injuries? Imagine if the manager and staff took that attitude-that it was “all down to injuries”-then we would never improve
The injuries to Giroud, Koscielny, Debuchy,Ramsey, Ox and Ozil; and all coming about the same time, destroyed our season.
Can you imagine if wilshere, arteta wasn’t injured? Our run of form started with wenger being forced to play the excellent rosicky and cazorla in the middle and also bringing back coq (sure no one anticipated his rise). But just imagine if all the players were fit…wilshere would be playing week in week out pushing santi and ozil to the flanks and with arteta/ flamini manning the engine…i’m not sure we would have the run of form we’re seeing… We’re playing well BECAUSE certain players are injured and those players happen to be wenger’s favorites
Either you failed to read the last two lines of the article above where the manager clearly explains that “We dropped off in this league because we won one of six at the start of the season”, or you are just a stubborn so and so.
Hopefully this ends the dim view some Arsenal fans have of Giroud.
Giroud has been excellent this season. I’m not too sure you will find many Arsenal fans who have a dim view of him any longer. The tangible frustration most arsenal fans felt when he got that needless red card earlier in the season shows that most fans realize how instrumental he is to the team.
Have to give Wenger credit for rotating smartly today by resting Carzola, Bellerin and Welbeck and also getting Sanchez out early. Also gave Walcott and Ramsey important minutes to get both closer to their best (thought Walcott still has a long way to go). He clearing is aiming to go all out on Weds vs Monaco and feels we can get the three goals needed. In terms of the league standing we have 9 matches left and are on 57 points. 18 points (six wins) in those 9 matches gets us to 75 which is surely going to be top… Read more »
I agree with Wenger to a certain degree, but the World Cup excuse doesn’t fly with me, all the top teams suffered from players coming back late. I know we had Ozil and Mert in the final, but our problems at the start of the season stem from having insufficient cover at centre back. If you know you’re forward lines aren’t 100% ready and in full flow then make sure you are rock steady at the back. We didn’t do that, and Koscielny was a big loss as was Debuchy.
The passing was telepathic atimes. I hope we will take this into next season so that we can have a better start. If we had done a little better – Leicester away, Hull and Totts home, we would be firmly in the title race.
I know the team was still trying to find its feet tactically then but that shouldn’t be a problem next season. I am optimistic.
I predict… Treble! If it happens I’ll have told you so. If not, no one will remember this comment.
So chuffed for my boy Giroud. Think he surprised even himself with that first strike but man… that dummy for the second!
Our issue was at the back. We did not have enough cover at Cback and it cost us. Both Monreal and Chambers are good players but were out of sorts in unfamiliar positions and it affected Metersecker. It had nothing to do with a world cup hangover. I mentioned this before. Coquelin has been a revelation this season but frankly, had he been playing ahead of the defenses first half of season, he would have done no differently to Arteta or Flamini. Most of the goals conceded at that point (you won’t see this advertised by 7amkickoff cos it does… Read more »
I think this run coincided with the injuries to Wilshire and Ramsey and probably Theo and dropping of Scsz.
All auto starters in this team irrelevant of how the affect the previous matches they played.
Monreal is very consistent and should be a starter.
Yes I dont like the way this guy presents his stats to reflect his views, totally not the same as seeing what went down in a match.
I highly doubt wenger “realized his faults”. He is a professional football manager, not a 2 bit amateur. Obviously he knows that we were severely lacking in cb, but there might have been hiccups in solving that problem. So obviously he had to risk it, which might have been what led to our acquisition of Gabriel.
I’m sure it was, but I can’t be alone in thinking that 10/15m for Jagielka or something similar would have been entirely worth it though, there’s reckless spending and then there’s needing to pay a little more to cover yourself; it was a gamble, a pretty bad one, nd we lost.
All in the past though, whoever’s dumb idea it was we now have Gabriel and can move forward.
Mate what is this weird obsession you have with 7 AM kick off you’re so resentful it’s bizarre and paranoid. This post has nothing to do with him.
This is an incisive analysis you think?……NO!! This is just a re-hash of what we have been hearing all season long…from pundits, from haters, from fans, hell!, from everyone, so its old news. what is new, is that these “perceived” weknesses in the arsenal squad appear to have been corrected and the clearly re-invigorated arsenal team is now on a winning streak!, and we as fans need to change our mindset accordingly, if we deserve to ba called “fans” This is an arsenal fan forum and i think it contravenes the ambience of the forum to continue to indulge in… Read more »
Blogs, I gotta ask, what is the music you use for the intro to the Arsecast?
Got a good feeling about Tuesday after these past few matches; 0-3 to the Arsenal!
hope Chelsea stutters in form and drop a lot of points in the next few games. Arsenal has clawed back 12 point deficits before but now the ball is still in Mou’s court. . Lets see if he drops a clanger in the man management department causing a massive drop in morale and form.
Just playing for that cunt must cause a massive drop in morale.
What if we win our game against Chelsea and all our other games, and they lose to 1 or 2 other teams? What if Citeh and Utd draw in the Manc derby?
If we win all our games and chelsea loose 3? Chelsea would be 3 points ahead of us. Although i’d love to win the PL this year, it seems near impossible that chelsea will loose that many points. We’d just have to settle with the CL and FA cup i guess.
2nd place is in the bag.
FA Cup sorted.
Champions League..ask me on Wednesday!
COYG!
It’s all looking good for us now, long may it continue. Has anyone else noticed that all may not be well between Ollie and Alexis? There seem not to be a very healthy communication between the 2. I hope I am wrong for the sake of the team. In the game against Monaco and other games in recent time, even in the West Ham game yesterday, on many occasions neither was really passing to each other, this is partly the reason why we haven’t done to well in some game. Like I said earlier, I hope and pray I am… Read more »
I’m amazed more hasn’t been made of Giroud’s flick leading up to goal #3. It wasn’t just any participation, it was the unlocking pass which pus Cazorla in behind. It was truly a Fabregas-grade flick (and better than present Fabregas grade, now that Mourinho has worn him down into a travesty).