Robert Exley
As someone who was born exactly nine months after Christmas Eve, I’m the kind of person that likes to think that not all mistakes are necessarily wrong. However, the other week I accidently tweeted the name of our big number 12 as ‘David Giroud’ – and I haven’t a clue why the mistake occurred. The best explanation I can give for the error was that it was probably what they call a Freudian slip. Maybe after he posed for French Gay mag ‘Tetu’ last year, under my liberal exterior an inner homophobe hiding under the surface subconsciously wanted to give our number twelve a more butch name than Olivier just to reassert a mental image of the bloke’s heterosexuality. However, from his baby-rocking and ball-under-the-jersey celebrations on Saturday, it would indicate that the red-blooded Giroud has probably got a girl in the club. Therefore, if there was no seasonal Turkey baster used for unorthodox purposes, it would probably indicate panic over for my poor distressed and insecure subconscious.
On the pitch, though, there’s certainly something very ‘Dave’ about our big number twelve. Straightforward and uncomplicated, you certainly know where you are with a ‘Dave’. Giroud was brought in to replace Robin van Persie, who is arguably the most skilful forward currently plying his trade in the English Premiership. In recent years, our most successful strikers tend to have been in the Henry/Bergkamp/RvP mould – of which Giroud certainly isn’t. Those strikers are like steak, where Giroud in comparison is rather like a hamburger. That said, as Elvis Presley and Ronald McDonald would probably testify, burgers too can be fun in their own way.
Giroud certainly has his detractors. Some rather witty chap on the forum has referred to him by the incredibly inventive moniker of ‘Le Chapman’ (I can see what he’s done there!), after Herbert’s less successful distant cousin who flopped at Highbury like a jelly on a wet mattress back in the '80s (though, to be fair, he scored against us with almost every other club he turned out for afterwards). I applaud that poster’s efforts on the humour front, but I’m afraid I don’t agree with his general assessment of big ‘Dave’s’ chances of success at the Arsenal in the long run. That said, he’s far from a lone voice on the matter. Against Fulham this year, someone sitting behind me on the North Bank actually claimed that Giroud is so crap that he would rather we persist with Chamakh than give him a run-out. Similarly, on Saturday against Newcastle, with the side thrice struggling to maintain their lead over the Geordie boys, as the electronic board signalled for the number twelve to come on, a loud shriek of despair from behind me cried ‘He’s s***!’. The protagonists on both occasions however went deafeningly quiet after Giroud bagged a double in both matches.
My assertion is that ‘Dave’ will be successful in due course, due to his ability to be effective at the basics. On the first day of the season against Sunderland, he missed a sitter, though - to be fair - during the same match Santi Carzola had done the ‘outlandish’ thing of hitting a corner in the box at head height, which left the rest of the Arsenal side looking as bemused as a sheep being introduced to an iPhone. Giroud is the first Arsenal player in a long while to be unashamed and uninhibited about the fact that he is good in the air and for that I applaud the guy, as I’m sick of the fact that, for far too long, set-pieces like corners have not been treated as the goal-scoring opportunities that they quite clearly are.
Much was also made of his attempt at Stoke back in August from distance that hit the roof of the net, particularly from Alan Davies’s TalkSportified ‘man with twelve O-Levels, two A-Levels and a Degree tries to sound like boorish idiot down the pub’ weekly podcast. Giroud has no qualms, though, about hitting the ball from distance and far less of an inclination to pass the ball to death – something Arsenal players for too long have been obsessed about. It’s odd also how, on the few occasions when I have stomached watching Robin van Persie in a United shirt this season he has scored a few times from outside the box, seemingly released from the shackles of an over-passing side. Also, aside from the sitter against Sunderland, Giroud has scored quite a few ‘meat-and-drink’ chances from inside the box this season, showing that his is no Nic Bendtner-style ‘cow’s-arse-with-a-banjo’ merchant.
Leaving aside the ‘jinx’ theory of our number nine shirt since the introduction of squad numbering nearly two decades ago, I personally feel that particular number would have been more befitting of Giroud than Podolski, as big ‘Dave’ is a more of a throwback to the traditional No 9s of English Football – like the Alan Smiths, Frank Stapletons and Malcolm McDonalds of old, rather than your modern Henrys and RvPs. Maybe that makes him a bit of a dinosaur in the modern EPL, a bit of a Tyrannosaurus Rex if you will (hence the title, pop pickers!). However after seven barren seasons, I’m pretty sure there’s many among us that wouldn’t mind the E******s Stadium renamed Jurassic Park if it translated into a few more points on the board.
I also greatly like how Walcott and Giroud have combined effectively from crosses on a couple of occasions this season – particularly against Reading and Newcastle – which. if Theo is going to be retained in the long run, hints at a potentially powerful axis that could be worked on at the training ground should a certain someone from Totteridge via Alsace Lorraine have the inclination to do so. But then again, having never worked a day in football what the hell would I know about that?
*Follow me on Twitter@robert_exley
