re: The Arsenal 2017/18: Au revoir Arsene, et merci.

I agree with that, but he was still an amazing player in the low block. Think of how many goals we scored because he was essentially an offensive pivot who could flick the ball with his back to goal and receive the ball on the half turn so many times. All he needed to do was to finish those easy chances and he would have been a 20 goal a season striker. That's all that was really needed.

I still love him though. I don't think we will ever find a target man as good. He's the best target man we've possibly ever had.

Yea I love the guy. Unbelievably loyal to the club. Always did his best. Can't ask for more. Also to his credit he improved every year.

As far as target men go he's one of the top oprions in the world. You can see it when he's with France. You need to surround Giroud with goal scorers to get the best out of him. That's why him and Greizmann are so good together. It's just managers don't use target men as much as they used to.

Watch him during the 2013 season when Ramsey was clicking on all cylinders. Some of his passes that season were sublime.

I think his first game was a good microcosm of the player Giroud was. Late in the game, Cazorla an unbelievable ball to match the super smart run by Giroud, who has a decent chance right in front of goal on his weaker foot. Here's the link at 4:50. LINK

Giroud misses and we finish fourth. Had he scored and we won the game we finish third, only two points behind second place Man City. If we accumulate all those chances those relatively easy chances he missed, he would have been a striker as valued as Auba.

Regardless he served a very good role here, and I'm glad we got his best years. We didn't use him the right way, but we did use him pretty well.

I don't think most people would try and convince you that Giroud is the ST that would have won us the league eventually. I'm a big fan of his and am disappointed to lose him but it stems more from the timing than anything else(also, frick Chelsea).

I remain very skeptical about our FWD depth and scoring potential in Europa League the rest of the way and still view that as our best route back to CL football next year.

Just not sold that all these new additions can gel in time to get us up to top 4 in the run in, especially considering they'll be playing with the same defense.

Beyond excited for the potential of this team to legit compete for titles in the next few years once the chemistry forms, just disappointed to see one of the few, real scoring options we had left this season be sacrificed.

But, frick it! That juice will be worth the squeeze 5 major trophies from now and we've still got NACHO to find the back of the old onion bag!

Shamelessly stolen from elsewhere, but looks like OG enjoyed his first Chelsea defeat today.

Damn that is a handsome man.

Calling it now, Oli G the double agent will continue to endear himself to the Arsenal faithful. Emirates statue incoming

I'm down with this lineup.

Aubameyang-Lacazette
Ozil-Any two midfielders not named Xhaka-Mkhitaryan
Monreal-Mustafi-Koscielny-Bellerin
Cech

Curious as to what formation Wenger uses with this lineup.

Hate that jack has been one of our top players and he’s on the bench