Olivier Giroud – Not Van Persie’s replacement.
Good morning!
I’ve written about Olivier Giroud extensively over the past week or so. Honestly, I feel as if I know Giroud better than I know myself. Giroud is six foot, three inches tall, well built, with Arsene Wenger describing the French forward as, ‘exceptional in the air’. Where Marouane Chamakh failed to be Arsenal’s key aerial threat up front, Arsenal’s ‘Plan B’ as it were, Giroud will be looking to succeed. Chamakh’s agent stated that the Moroccan would stay if Robin Van Persie left and Giroud was Chamakh’s only competition. For me, Giroud is Chamakh’s replacement and I don’t believe for a second that Wenger wishes to keep Chamakh. If Robin Van Persie were to leave, then a new striker would be brought in.
Giroud’s signing has consequently brought about rumour that Van Persie will be leaving Arsenal imminently. I don’t know how many times I need to write this, but Giroud has not been signed to be Arsenal’s new leading striker, but a player there to replace Nicklas Bendtner and Chamakh. Lukas Podolski has also been signed by Arsenal, but he will be placed on the left of Arsenal’s attack, not down the middle.
Robin Van Persie’s contract is another matter entirely to Olivier Giroud’s transfer. Since day one, it’s been widely acknowledged that Van Persie loves his life in London, but wants to compete at the highest level, winning trophies and I understand that 100%. Van Persie needs to be shown by Arsenal that they have an ambition to compete and win trophies. To indicate that Arsenal are indeed ambitious, encouraging movement needs to be made in the transfer market and with two high calibre strikers signed before the transfer window is even officially underway, that should surely tell Van Persie that Arsenal want to match his ambitions and win trophies.
Cesc Fabregas once spoke of Arsenal’s need to sign big players, Andrey Arshavin also repeatedly said that same just months after joining Arsenal. I remember Fabregas was once encouraged by rumours that Arsenal were in for Xabi Alonso. That rumour must have held a grain of truth toward it for Fabregas to get worked up about it, but ultimately, Alonso didn’t sign for Arsenal, had a blinding season with Liverpool and then left for pastures new at Real Madrid.
When Fabregas’ wishes were not met, noises about him joining Barcelona soon grew louder and I still believe that if Arsenal signed a few Xabi Alonso-type players, rather than buying Denilsons in bulk, then Fabregas would still be playing his football at Emirates Stadium. I still think he’d have left for Barcelona at some stage, but if he was winning big, shiny trophies with Arsenal, then I believe he wouldn’t have gone to the lengths of feigning injury and refusing to play for Arsenal on their Asian tour last season.
For every newspaper inch filled with, ‘Giroud’s arrival signals that Arsenal are ready to let Van Persie leave’, I’ll donate a pound to the ‘Robin Van Persie contract fund’. If Arsenal are signalling their ambition in the transfer market, I see no reason as to why he’d need to leave.
Gary Madine
Finally this morning, I leave on a note I didn’t really have an inclination to write about at the start of writing, but Twitter has fuelled me with the need to clarify my points made on the website over Gary Madine and his picture with some model.
‘Some model’ posted a topless photo of herself and the Sheffield Wednesday striker tweaking her nipple. Whilst I fully appreciate that football players do have a life outside scoring goals and winning matches, the pleasures they indulge in should be kept secret. As an Arsenal fan, was I happy to see a picture of Marouane Chamakh smoking a ‘Sheesha’ pipe last season with friends? No. One, whilst sheesha isn’t harmful, it doesn’t exactly cast a great image for supporters, does it? Likewise Gary Madine and female Sheffield Wednesday supporters, or what about young Wednesday fans who have the intelligence to click that they aren’t bothered about seeing tits on Twitter?
Jack Wilshere, following Arsenal’s 8-2 defeat to Manchester United, used a profanity on his Twitter account to applaud the travelling Arsenal support. Noting that Wilshere had indeed used a swear word to his million followers, many of them being young, Arsenal scolded the midfielder and ordered him to delete his tweet.
Every club monitors the use of Twitter by their players, the Spanish squad originally had a ban placed on them prior to Euro 2012 beginning. Gary Madine’s appearance on a model’s Twitter account, tweaking a nipple, is not exmplary behaviour. I don’t care what Madine does in his spare time and he is probably a ‘bit of a lad’ in his spare time, but supporters don’t necessarily want to see that side. We expect the employees of the football clubs we support to be professional in the public domain, not play the role of Hugh Heffner.
I do realise that I haven’t displayed a picture of what Madine was getting upto. I would post it, but anybody could be reading this. You see what I mean? I wouldn’t post that image on a football blog in the event of it offending a female reader, of which we actually have a fair few. Can Madine not see that?
I could edit the image to blot out said boobs, but I don’t have the time to photoshop pictures of Gary Megson’s face to the model’s boobs.
On that note, I’m done for today, I feel like I deserve an award for churning out 900+ words on a ‘non-news day’.
Till tomorrow
Excellent again Craig. Chelsea Ferguson was the said model. Cracking tits, well done Gary Madine.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s brilliant! Photo should have remained private though, especially in an environment where clubs try so hard to have their players profess a professional image across Twitter. Cristiano Ronaldo and Cesc Fabregas are probably the best examples of how to manage a Twitter account as a professional football player.