Arsenal needed Olivier Giroud on Saturday.
For the third time this season, Giroud came from the bench to score an important Premier League goal which allowed Arsenal to leave Old Trafford with an undeserved point.
Giroud may start for Arsenal in their Champions League game against PSG on Wednesday night, but if Wenger finds himself in need of Giroud’s goals, he is moving further away from creating a successful side.
Giroud has disappointed too often for Arsenal, but he is also a player who provides something lacking in the side. The idea of Giroud springing from the bench to deliver the kind of goal he scored on Saturday is a seductive one as it would suggest Arsenal have assembled the kind of squad where a player like Giroud, who scored fifty goals in the Premier League faster than any Arsenal player apart from Thierry Henry and Ian Wright, would be in reserve to offer an alternative option.
Arsenal’s problem is that the alternative isn’t good enough and the original plan as put forward on Saturday is flimsy.
Before Giroud’s introduction at Old Trafford, Arsenal played as if unaware that scoring a goal was part of the game, as if they had advanced football onto a new plane free from such a crude metric. They played as if a goal would be an offensive act, something boorish and not in keeping with their mission which, apparently, was to do as little as possible.
Giroud changed that. He attacked Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s cross with a menace that had been lacking in every other aspect of Arsenal’s performance. He provided their only attempt on target and their only goal.
Before the international break, Arsenal played Spurs in the North London derby. They had a little bit more urgency that day, but managed only two attempts on target, one from Giroud in the final minutes. On that occasion, Giroud didn’t have the opportunity to attack the ball and he headed straight at Hugo Lloris.
On Tuesday, Wenger gave no indication if Giroud would start against PSG at the Emirates on Wednesday, but he did promise that his top scoring forward “is not forever on the bench”.
But perhaps he should be. Giroud provides something Arsenal lack, but the solution is not to turn to Giroud and the fact that Arsenal have to suggest there may be more disappointment ahead this season.
Giroud was Arsenal’s top scorer last season despite going 15 league games without a goal which says something about Giroud, but perhaps even more about Arsenal.
Arsenal remain a club in search of the ruthlessness which would be transformative, a ruthless that they allowed slip through their fingers when they made a botched attempt to sign Luis Suarez in 2013.
The search has been ongoing since then and the performance on Saturday illustrates once again why Wenger wanted to buy Jamie Vardy in the summer, while also being linked with Antoine Griezmann, Romelu Lukaku and, perennially, Gonzalo Higuain.
They are all an upgrade on Giroud, but as things stand Giroud is the only Arsenal player fundamentally interested in the messy business of scoring goals.
Arsenal have given some indications this season that there is more substance to their side, but against Spurs and, particularly, Manchester United, they seemed to suffer from the familiar failings, the same failing which has troubled Wenger’s sides for many years.
On Tuesday, Wenger said he had watched the United game again and noted that his side hadn’t done enough with the possession they had in the first half, but he could have been watching and reflecting on plenty of Arsenal games against big sides in recent years.
“We have to face the critics and accept it,” Wenger said on Tuesday. “We were not on the best side of our fluent game. We had not preset before the game not to score goals.”
It may have been of some comfort to Arsenal fans to hear that this hadn’t been part of a plan, it only looked like it. Their inhibited style was not an instruction and may have simply revealed the mental block whose existence Wenger didn’t deny afterwards.
The corrective action needed to remove this block has never been completed by Wenger. Vardy would have been a radical solution while Griezmann is a player who would transform any club.
When that transformation will now take place remains to be seen. In the meantime, Wenger might have to turn to Giroud if he needs something more than the passivity he witnessed on Saturday.
Wenger said he hadn’t decided if Giroud would start on Wednesday night, saying the choice between Alexis Sanchez and Giroud also offered a choice of styles. “They are different style of players and that dictates a different style for us.”
Arsenal are a better side without Giroud and he has never delivered the volume of goals to make that aesthetic compromise worth it.
Since his arrival in 2012, he has never suggested he could offer the real threat that Arsenal needed and it may have significant that his run without a goal ended last season when Arsenal were out of the title race and that pressure was off.
This long run last season came at a time when Arsenal were removing themselves from a title race in a season when they should have been the strongest challengers. Goalless draws against Stoke and Southampton and a defeat at Swansea were among the results which set Arsenal back. They were games when the absence of a world-class goalscorer was obvious.
Now Arsenal may have to turn to Giroud again, a player who offers a little of what the rest of the squad lack, but only enough to cause concern for Arsenal.
Wenger pointed out on Tuesday that Giroud was returning to full fitness after a difficult start to the season. He was one of the Arsenal players given time off after the European Championships and then he picked up a toe injury which kept him out for a month.
In his absence, Arsenal beat Chelsea at the Emirates and suggested there was a side of real potential emerging. But the performance on Saturday would suggest that confidence has been misplaced. If Arsenal made a statement at Old Trafford, it was a whispered and meek one, a statement which suggested an ingrained timidity.
“I have only good players and every week I leave top players on the bench,” Wenger said on Tuesday when considering Giroud’s role.
Giroud still has something to offer Arsenal, but he has demonstrated too often that he is not the solution to Arsenal’s problems. He can be an alternative for the bench, but on Saturday, he appeared to be more than that, he appeared to be a cry for help.
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