Morning folks. Welcome to Tuesday and welcome to a day in which that most emotional of people – the Italians – will be even more emotional given the fact that they’re players failed to reach the World Cup finals for the first time in a gazillion years. 

I mention this only because I work with a few Italians, so there will be a few grumpy people in my office this morning, although I will point to the fact that they have seen their country win the World Cup and also they haven’t gone through nearly as much heartache and irritation as you do as an Arsenal fan.

Arsenal-supporting Italians however, well, probably just best to steer clear of them today.

As expected with Arsenal still not really on the agenda due to the continuing round of internationals, the official website is going with various articles about the handsome bearded Frenchman. There’s something about him wanting to emulate Jean-Pierre Papin, who was one of the first striker I remember pretending to be as a kid in the playground, so I kind of get why Giroud has named him as one of his idols. 

He’s also won the goal of the month competition for that Red Star bicycle kick that turned up the excitement levels about 12 points on the game in Belgrade. At this point I’m wondering if the club shouldn’t just retire the award because Ollie G seems to have a real monopoly on wonder goals. When his time comes to hanging up his boots I suspect history will be very kind to him, not least because of his ability to turn in a stellar YouTube compilation performance. In this age of reduced attention span the ability to be elevated beyond your actual level is rife and so I expect that 20 years from now the talk will be on whether he was one of Arsenal’s best five strikers of all time. 

He’s clearly not, because Bergkamp, Henry, Wright and van Persie all have been better in my time alone, which is not even counting the likes of Charlie George or Cliff Bastin. So whilst I’ll certainly recount some good performances and some great goals, I’ll be the fifty something bloke that won’t be moved on arguments about Ollie in that top five.

There’s also some stuff on the official site about the Anfield 89 side following the documentary that is soon to be released. It’s a great one to watch but I won’t labour the point too much, having already done something of a write up last week. Suffice to say there are some stories about a proper back four that pretty much put our current defensive shambles in to stark context. 

If only some of them were in the current set up to actually be allowed to coach defence by the current manager eh? Sigh…

Anyway, that’s enough from me today, because I’m in danger of getting even more rambly and ranty if I carry on. And I’m sure that there’ll be plenty of time for that in the aftermath of the north London Derby on Saturday when Harry Kane makes a miraculous recovery to start and score a hat trick in front of my very own eyes.

Laters y’all.