Despite drawing a blank in the club’s first game of the season, Olivier Giroud says he’s the man who can help a ‘fantastic’ Arsenal team win things this season.
The French striker got 19 goals last season, the second highest scorer behind Alexis Sanchez, and he’s sure that after improving his goals to games ratio last season he can do it again this time.
“I showed great mental strength last year and I had good stats,” he said, probably in reference to being out injured for three months.
“I always try to improve myself and I feel with the team, so yes, I am sure I can bring something more to the team and to my team-mates.
“When you want to win the league it is always a mix of skill and mental quality, technique and tactical.
“You cannot win the league without mental strength, so obviously we need that and I think we have got it in our squad, the team is fantastic, like our understanding between us together. I think we can do well with that.”
All eyes will be on Arsene Wenger’s team this Sunday at Selhurst Park after losing to West Ham last weekend, something Giroud is aware of.
“We want to bounce back on Sunday. In pre-season, we all worked well together. We won the Community Shield so there is a lot of expectation.
“Unfortunately we have made mistakes, but we will learn from them and try not to do it again.”
The 29 year old scored against Crystal Palace away from home last season. Whether that plays a part in him retaining his spot tomorrow remains to be seen.
Less Talk More ACTION
Hate all the pony about wanting to bounce back and we’ll learn from our mistakes! Sometimes I’d rather hear we were poor, not good enough etc..
Honestly I’ll support arsenal regardless and won’t throw my toys out the pram when we lose, I just delete MOTD.
Anyway I’m gibbering now! Up the arsenal,let’s get a convincing win tommorow,. Love this team, one and all.
Do we think that CP will play very defensive? It might not be the game to try it, since we definitely need all three points but I would like to see Giroud and Walcott up top together sometime. The hold up play and distribution from Giroud to a sprinting Walcott sounds good to me. Maybe save that for a League Cup game or a home game vs a lower table side.
Formation? I really miss the days of our 4-4-2,round pegs in round holes!
Obviously the game’s moved on, I’m just dribbling thinking about Bergkamp and Henry up top!
Sorry,what was the question again?
Haha yes, I was thinking 4-4-2, could have made that clearer.
Round pegs in round holes like Freddie Ljungberg who nearly left because he had never played on the wing his whole career until he came to Arsenal? People didn’t poke holes in things before because we won a lot. There’s a lot of revisionism that goes on when looking back at the great team. Like: 1. The team nowadays is so mentally weak whereas that great team wasn’t. Never mind the fact that they lost against Liverpool in the FA Cup final in 2001 after battering them all game and how they bottled it in 2003 when they were strolling… Read more »
I agree that mental weakness has been a feature of Wenger’s tenure, that Cup final, more than one league thrown away, the UEFA cup final all in the first 10 years of his reign, the difference then is we had much better players and the opposition was weaker.
Hard to guess how CP will play.
Common sense would dictate play very defensively, see if we get rattled lose confidence and hit us on the break.
I am hoping ego gets the better of Pardew, he goes swashbuckling to find Arsenal determined, together and potent, we promptly hand them a 4-0 spanking and everyone declares normal service resumed regarding the Gunners.
Anything less and things could get sticky.
And so it begins. Blah, blah, blah.
As a once great man said, “Just Do It!”
“Don’t let your dreams be dreams”
Giroud is a fantastic striker. He, just like everyone else last week was poor. I expect a better performance tomorrow and 2goals from him.
Coyg!!
if only, SIGH!
Giroud pretty much reflects this Arsenal team. Sometimes very good, sometimes very bad; overall, not quite good enough.
I wish he’d have been ready last week. Amirite? Up top!
youarrite- and I wish the same of the other 13 that graced the pitch that day as well..
Let’s hope a few show up against Palace.
Hooray! We’re going to win everything.
Hopefully tomorrow there is less of Giroud punching the ground and more aggression in looking to find the back of the net.
I still don’t think he uses his considerable strength and frame enough to score goals as he does while holding the ball up for others.
Well said.
Clearly Wenger’s influence is rubbing off on him, all the talk of mental strength!
Hope he has a good season and rises to the healthy competition.
I think that is PR coaching at work. You can feel it how all the terms and tones of most squad members interviews are alike.
OG is a good striker but is he going to lead us to win the PL??? I have my reservations
If we accept that Arsenal can’t afford to buy a player in the Suarez, Ronaldo, Messi, Aguero (when fit) bracket who will produce in just about every type of game, home or away (and I don’t include people like Benzema, Lewandoski, Cavani in this list because while they are very good strikers, they do not score and create with the consistency of Messi and co) then I see no reason why Giroud can’t be part of Arsenal’s attacking solution. Let’s not forget that, when he is playing in an arsenal side that is clicking, he can be unstoppable. Then again,… Read more »
Agree completely. My opinion- backup to Coquelin in midfield is a greater priority than a striker. A stronger defense and midfield gives confidence to attack. Further to your post, rotation is the key. If we had signed Benzema and played the way we did last week, he would have made no difference. We have enough strength in depth to rotate several players on a weekly basis and keep teams guessing. Flexibility is paramount as when we become predictable we become stale, and then can flounder as we did last week. For my money, the players themselves never feeling entitled to… Read more »
I am behind you Oli.
I believe in mental strength too
Talk is cheap brother,you re simply not good enough for an EPL aspiring champion’s team
We don’t need a striker super Sanchez will get 40 in all comps this year ?
West Ham got beat 1-2 by Leicester today at home. How bad we`re we last week? hehe Giroud was 26 when he arrived here which is about the start of the golden years for most strikers when they play at the peak of their career. So far he has contributed an average of 13.6 goals and 4.6 assists per season which in my opinion falls quite short of where you want your primary striker to be at in a club fighting for the biggest honours. Imo he is actually more indispensable defensively than offensively because being a big guy in… Read more »
Someone asked me a good qustion they wanted me to answer honestly. If Giroud was leading he attack of City or Chelsea and we had Aguero or Costa would I still consider them favourites for the title? And honestly I dont think I would, I think we would be hands down the favourites with Aguero up front.
No we wouldn’t. Because Chelsea have a far superior manager.
Even if we had Aguero, Suarez, Messi and Ronaldo in our side Wenger’s mismanagement would somehow cost us the title.
Just like how we had Henry, Bergkamp, Pires… and Wenger’s mismanagement cost us the title(s)?
A superior short term manager. Let’s not forget that mourinho has never stayed at any club more than 3 or 4 years.
By then, in most cases, everyone from the players to the chairman can’t stand the sight of him any more.
Hardly surprising when you see the doctor nonsense as a prime example. Not even mentioning the style of play you have to endure as a fan.
I’d take wenger over mourinho all day and every day. football is a game, when winning replaces everything else as the primary reason for watching, is it really worth watching any more?
Mourinho inherited a good team with Chelsea this time around too and made it even better by adding Cesc,Costa and Matic. He has never really built a team or many generations of teams like Wenger. I hate that asshole and also all these media types who run behind him trying to get a gossip magazine sort of reaction or quote. They should stop paying attention to him if they want football to remain a classy game
I agree. If he had Aguero or some similar technical striker, it would be closer to bergkamp or Henry or even dutch skunk quality which we miss dearly today. Olivier just doesn’t cut it, for all his link up play etc. I think the team just learned to play to his strengths. And if we had someone like Costa or Suarez (although I would not want him in Arsenal shirt for his classless antics) we’d have an aggressive predatoy striker who would be able to chip in 25-30 goals in league only, you could expect that. OG showed improvement last… Read more »
I fell for all the pre season hype and all the positive talk which is bad cos the opening game letdown was all the worse. To be honest I’m tired of all the talking and I just want to see the team put into practice all they’ve been saying. I love this team but please let’s not have another disappointing season. COYG! I have every confidence in you but it’s time to rise up to the occasion now.
I say we get the corporal back from West Ham to compete with Cech..
I thought that this was the week it was wise for our players to keep quiet . And i believe Giroud is becoming way too talkative for my liking . Less talk, more perfomances.
My palace team goes like this: cech, bellerin, mertesacker, koscielny, monreal, coquilen, cazorla, ozil, alexis, chamberlain, walcott/ giroud. Debuchy must drop down to the bench, he looked a little rusty against westham. Ramsey should be benched. I think he is the one that is disturbing the chemistry. either he plays box to box or not at all. and I don’t think he is benching santi any time soon, and when he plays on the wings we become narrow and one dimensional. Up top we could play either walcott or giroud because I don’t think palace will park the bus. All… Read more »
They need to do the talking on the pitch more.
Actually someone needs to tell them we are in danger of falling out of the top four and the manager too.
we seem to put together a good run when we are in danger of missing the top four.
I think he needs to stop trying to convince himself, fans, media and pundits that he’s good enough to lead the line for a champion side by talking and start producing consistently on the pitch. Personally, I have my reservations because I believe that at his age, this is pretty much his peak and for a striker, it could start going downhill very quickly. Also, for those who think Giroud and Walcott are good enough, answer me this: Why did Wenger seriously try to get Higuain and Suarez over the past couple of years if he believed in his strike… Read more »
Very well said. When I saw this I just felt irritated as he did this before, we’ve been here before. When there was noise about how we are trying to sign Higuain OG also did the same, as if he felt that 1st choice striker position should be his primarily, when Welbeck came as well. Also when he was saying how he cannot play any other position and others can (Walcott, Welbeck), can’t really explain it here but it just feels irritating. OG should really talk less and finally produce on the pitch, although he had more chances than pretty… Read more »
You’re just writing something to suit your argument here. When we were linked with Higuain, Giroud was actually positive about the idea of another striker, which a lot of people found strange at the time (after all, why would he want competition). And by they way, everybody saying he should talk less: I’m sure he wasn’t walking around trying to find a journalist so that he could tell them all about his mental strength and what-not. He has obligations to give interviews (I’m sure as part of his contract, as with the other players). What do you want them to… Read more »
True,he did support the idea of buying another striker, you are right. And I might be trying to back up my argument. My memory is bad so it does not help. I’m being a bit negative, it is easy to bash, but still we have ben here before too many times. I hope OG proves us all wrong, has an injury free season and continues his last season form (the good streak he was on), scores 25+ PL goals and proves us all 🙂 he is a late bloomer as he proved in France.
Fair enough. Thanks for the reasoned response.
My post was nothing to do with my opinion of Giroud btw – just annoys me that the players have to answer these stupid questions and moreso the fact that people read so much into them and criticise them for answering in any way (if he’d said the opposite people would still complain).
I’m interested in what players do on the pitch – if they’re cocky, humble, whatever off of it I don’t care, as long as it works.
No he wasn’t. when we were in for higuain, he said he’d be unhappy if we signed another striker. He said that again in january 2014, saying how walcott and podolski could fill in for him.
Apart from recently, the only time he said he didn’t mind was when we were in for Suarez because he felt they could “play together”
I hate it everytime he talks….hate it. But love it when he scores.
He has no doubt improved but it maybe time to agree that Girouds best isn’t good enough to see us with the title. Need an addition! A quality addition. Its Imperative infact!
I like him a lot when we dominate games,he can score from the six yards then his assists,I mean he will everly be the chief assist to the goal celebrant,I don’t think Wenger is serious with just him and obere isi Walcott as our forwards
Well said, fully agree!
Don’t talk about it man, do it
I still think that with such an abundance of midfield talent in the squad we could afford to give Alexis a run of games up front and see where that goes. Everyone is crying out for a ‘world class’ striker when there’s v little on the market. Sanchez has proved he’s that caliber of player…?
Ollie would be an ideal backup #9. But can he be The Man? I guess we will find out this season because it seems unlikely that Wenger will buy an upgrade this summer.
I love everyone wearing that red and white shirt. Up gunners
What do you guys think of a 4-1-3-2 system. I know, it’s not a classic Wenger system but I think it would match the qualities of our players more than any other system. The 3 offensive midfielders would have to accept their defensive duties and then I think this would be a pretty balanced but unpredictable team. I would give it a try:
Cech – Ospina
Bellerin – Debuchy Mertesaker – Chambers Koscielny – Gabriel Monreal – Gibbs
Coquelin – Arteta – Flamini
Chamberlain – Cazorla Özil – Rosicky Ramsey – Wilshere
Alexis – Walcott
Giroud – Welbeck
Good idea – let’s try out a new formation in the 2nd game of the season in a (now) important game.
Can we just win against palace ? Thanks
Mental strength…. pretty sure us supporters show the most mental strength out of anyone.
Hahaha… True that!
Best comment on the topic. Agree fully.
True and I take your point but, we are just the anonymous in the heard, imagine being on stage infront of that! drunk angry youtube stars et al.
See Eboue after THAT game to come back.
So yeah I think the mental part of the game is as important as anything, so what if its a Wenger buzz quote, droneing on with repetative quotes about repetative quotes.
“I showed great mental strength last year…”
Ah, the signs of a true Arsene Wenger protégé.
19 goals last season. Giroud is s*** and not good enough to win us the title. We need a 20 goal-a-season striker.
Maybe you idiots will see how stupid your argument look’s when it’s written down.
My God are you, accusing Giroud of talking too much, dumb!
It’s an official website interview, not a press interview. Players are mandated ooblige them once selected by social media strategy team of Arsenal.
If anyone, they need to be rapped for choosing Giroud for this interview after a dismal performance. He is always an easy target for ranting fans and especially if the transfer window is open and all they need for Christmas is Benzema
I think this fuck immoral culture of fake and sensational ITK’s and you impulsive ranting fans really deserve eachother. This is truly your decade, us others are just weird outsiders who just like watching football
Wenger can bring Benzema, Carvalho or whoever you guys want, things won’t change until Wenger himself steps down. We need a new manager.
I hated the way manure used to brag about what they would win, equally true of chavski!!! So when we were bigging ourselves up as title contenders I didn’t like it! Just shut up and let the football do the talking!!! You wouldn’t look a numpty after the westham game, indeed the pundits would say it was predictable and write us off, then the pressure would be off and we might actually get on and perform!!! Leave being of gobby moron to Maureen!!!