Tag Archives: Oliver Giroud

Giroud deal..erm..not til after Euros? Tommy go home

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Morning party people,

Yesterday afternoon Twitter went crazy, as news seeped through the gutter press, emintaing from France Football’s disclosure that Oliver Giroud had agreed terms and a deal had been struck between Arsenal and Montepellier. Ironically enough however, this piece of news also included the caveat that nothing would be announced until after the Euro’s. So where are we now? Exactly where we were a day earlier. The whole world seems to know that Giroud is coming, and all that’s happened is we have another media source announcing it. Unfortunately, if what they say is true, we won’t hear anything for another couple of weeks. So if ever there was a non-story, surely this is it? I know that there is no smoke without fire when so many media outlets announce something at once but if that is the simple fact (that we won’t hear for another few weeks, then I’m refusing to drop my Paddy Powers and do a little jig just yet.

When he arrives, i’ll welcome Giroud with open arms and hopes for a succesful career. But until then, let’s shelve the commentary and YouTube compilations.

In more Arsenal-related news, it looks like Tomas Rosicky’s time in Poland and Ukraine could be in jeopardy, after it was announced that he had returned to Prague for tests on his achilles. If he misses the tournament then it’s a sad state for him, but from a purely selfish point of view, I hope it can be rested if there is even the slightest doubt on whether he should play. The logical thought process from the player and international coaching team should be that there is no point in risking your next season for a couple of games playing through the pain barrier, but we know from how Jack Wilshere played through his problems and how it affected his season. Players just want to play the next game and Rosicky might be looking at these Euro’s and thinking that it might be his last big international tournament. Let’s just hope the prognosis from Prague is positive.

Tomas is not the only man with a big ‘?’ hanging over his head, with Theo now looking like he’s struggling with a hamstring problem, which sounds like a worrying situation for both player, England and Arsenal as well. Theo has had quite a few problems with his hamstrings over the last couple of years and the thought that he could try and push himself to get into that England team is also a slight worry for me. Hopefully Roy will be sensible enough to be extra cautious. It does also further raise the question of his injury proneness and does make me wonder why he has bitten our hands off for a new deal just yet. All this rubbish about waiting for Robin to sign can’t really be true can it? If Walcott is basing his future on the actions of other players you have to question his intelligence. When Thierry left, the attacking players saw it as an opportunity to step up, and if the worst does happen and RvP leaves, Theo should see if as an opportunity to fight for the position he has always said he craves.

Tonight’s game against Ukraine is a really interesting one. Schevchenko rated only ’50-50′ if you believe the press. Something tells me he will start in what could potentially be his last game for his country. Both teams need to probably go for a win, but with home field advantage, Ukraine will be very diffficult to beat. Wayne Rooney and the world’s most ridiculously chavvie hair style will be back in force, and I think it will see Andy Carroll rewarded with a place on those comfy sporting seats in the dugout. Roy will give Young and Milner the attacking spots beside him I think, which is also slightly harsh on Welbeck, who has been an able deputy in Rooney’s absence.

Despite the fact that Ukraine will be hard to beat, I still fancy England to get something, so I’m going for a classic England nervy draw which sees them through. The good thing is that it’s not Arsenal – then we’d all really be nervous!

Until tomorrow peeps.

Giroud and M’Villa talk (ish)

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Well good morning party people!

So, yesterday we saw the first elimination of Poland and Russia in Euro 2012, and I have to say I’m surprised that the Russian’s went out. With so many great players and Andre Arshavin on top form (Obviously playing in a Russian shirt suits the mercurial maestro better than an Arsenal shirt), Russia where everyone’s pick to qualify for the next stages. However, we now get to see everyone’s favourite team Greece (not) get eliminated against either Germany, or Holland, or Portugal, or Denmark. I have to say I’m not a fan of the Greek team; their football is boring and I’m happy that they’ll be going out in the next round – I’m sure Angela Merkel will be very pleased to see that in some way she can get her revenge on the Greeks, even if it is through sport and not austerity.

Tonight we’ll find out if Germany or Holland or Portugal or Denmark go through to the next round and I still believe that Holland will scrape through. I don’t know why I think that, I just have this little niggly feeling. Their camp is all of the place at the moment, but they still have some world class players that can get them out of trouble, so it will be interesting to see how they respond to the pressure tonight.

On to all things Arsenal, and we have a few little tit bits coming out from the French camp about a couple of players we’ve been linked with since what feels like forever. Oliver Giroud is being understandably cagey about his future, and told assorted media so, saying “It’s nice that people talk about me but I can’t talk about my future right now.” – I like the sound of this guy. He doesn’t seem to want to be in the limelight much and appears quite humble. Compare that to the attention seeking whore that is Eden Hazard and it is quite refreshing. The only thing we need to see now is the announcement on the Arsenal website. Come on Arsene, let’s wrap this one up soon so we can all get on with our lives, and look for the next set of areas we need to strengthen in. Which appears to be defensive midfield if the quotes from Rennes midfield enforcer M’Villa are to believed.

The man Yann was quoted in some sections of the press having said “I like Arsenal and I like the Premier League but I don’t know what is happening with the clubs, though. But I would be interested in the Premier League – and Arsenal.” sounds very familiar and is similar to the noises made by Nasri and Gervhino before they were officially announced as Arsenal players. I was beginning to think this move probably wouldn’t happen as each day moves on, but these quite wi no doubt increase the speculation, and a player wouldn’t make comments like this unless a) he was getting closer to a move, or perhaps more cynically b) he was looking for an improved contract from his current club. I don’t think Rennes can match some of the big European clubs financial muscle, so it will probably be the former of the two scenarios that we see played out.

What I think has helped Arsenal’s situation is the injury M’Villa sustained that has kept him out of the first two games. I’m not sure if he’s due back into the French first eleven for the game on Tuesday, but the less game time he gets in these Euro’s, the less that clubs like City, Madrid, United or Chelski have of sniffing around him. Hopefully a deal can be done, we hear of Robin’s desire to stay and we can start this season with a bit more stability than the steaming turd that was last years transfer torture.

Not really a lot else happening today so I’ll leave it there and ‘catch ya on tha flip side’ as these young kids would say – if we had a time machine to travel back to the mid eighties.

Adios.

Giroud: Smells likely despite the fake story

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Do you know, it took me 15 seconds to find a gooner reporting an Arsenal transfer story yesterday evening? 15 SECONDS! And my phone is slow so most of that time was spent loading up my feed. It really is quite depressing seeing so many people going mental over transfers. Waaaaaay back in the day you could go out and play football and wait for your mum to shout out of the lounge window ‘Ian Wright has just signed for Arsenal’ and you could run indoors panting and excited because Arsenal had made an official announcement. Now all we get is varying levels of ‘meh’ because the transfer is so publicised that by the time it happens it feels like the guys already played 300 games and is waiting for his testimonial. It’s all a bit sad really. But I guess that is the price we play for information so readily available in today’s society. Everyone’s in the know before each other.

I wanted to talk about tactics and a change of formation potentially, but perhaps I’ll save that for a day when even the ITKs are quiet, so I’ll stick with the news that emanated last night that we had struck a deal with Montpellier for Oliver Giroud. The figure from ‘Canal+’ – which later turned out to be fake – was around £8.5million plus Marouene Chamakh. Yes, it may have been fake, but ive decided to do a blog on the potential anyway, because it all feels very ‘Arsenal-like’. Not being a world-renowned super scout with an encyclopaedic knowledge of international football, I decided to do a bit of Googling about the guy and the more I read the more he sounded like a different proposition to the attacking options we’ve already got. Not pacey, but gifted with an ability to finish as well as hold up play, as well as being tall and strong. He finished the French League’s top scorer (I think) and has risen up from the French lower leagues to become one of the hot prospects of the division. Sounds like an Arsene transfer if ever there was one.

He’s also got a buy out clause which is around the £12million I believe. Again, something Arsene has already taken advantage of with Podolski. The fee quoted in the fale article may be short of that figure, but if Chamakh is thrown into the picture as well then it may be a more realistic story than we would initially view a ‘Twitter exclusive’. After all, Chamakh is still well respected in the French league and Montpellier’s perspective may be that they can get a ready-made experienced French Ligue 1 striker to replace Giroud as well as a fee that can be reinvested into other areas of the squad that can improve the team. Montpellier are not the biggest club in the world and have one of the smallest wage bills in the league, so cashing in on Giroud might be an ideal solution for them. The only potential spanner in these works, should they be true, is that Chamakh will be on Arsenal wages, and I’d be very surprised if Montpellier would match that. So we will have to see if that particular story comes to pass.

The other question that would be raised, almost inevitably, would be ‘does that mean Robin is off?’ – I don’t buy the view that one player begets another when it comes to situations like this, so whilst it’s not impossible, I wouldn’t say it spells the end for Robin if it did actually one day go through. What also gives you hope is that Giroud is a different type of player to Robin, which would suggest that he could play alongside the Dutchman as well as deputise for him. We shall wait and see.

That’s it from me today. Have at it party people.