So he's played 117 minutes of Premier League football or 162 minutes in an Arsenal shirt and questions are already being asked "Is Giroud good enough and/or can he fill RVP's boots?". Frankly I find it ridiculous that he's felt the need to come out and explain himself two weeks in a row and ultimately I don't see why some fans and especially the media feel the need to criticise his performance/s.
So why the need for the negativity? Simple, we should be scoring and that is purely down to our centre forward and him alone. The amount of people that reckon he should have squared it to Ramsey is unreal. That option was still a difficult ball and passing it to Aaron didn't guarantee a goal. What I saw was a player who has an eye for goal, he spotted Begovic of his line and came within inches of scoring one of the goals of season. Now the cynics out there will say he didn't score and it doesn't matter if it missed by inches or metres(which is nonsense) but the fact is the vision, awareness and let's not forget confidence to take that shot on shows that we have a player on our hands. I'm no expert when it comes to Giroud but what I have seen of him is he isn't scared to have a pop at goal and that for me is a positive. Look at what the crisis of confidence did to Chamakh, he would have rather run a mile than have a pop at goal. We need players who are prepared to have a dig and we can't be selective when it suits. 
The comparison to van Persie which unfortunately will linger until our strikers begin to fire is pointless. He's gone and they are far from similar but that doesn't mean Giroud isn't any good, who's to say he can't be better than him after Wenger has taught him a thing or two. In Giroud we have a great, yes great, target man. He makes it stick, brings others into play and helps us advance/catch up with ball. I think both Huth & Shawcross were taken by surprise by him yesterday as he fought hard with them. He contested every header and proved solid when called upon to defend. In April van Persie didn't contest one ball in the air Giroud contested twelve (and winning five), that shows a shift in our tactics and mentality going forward. These things though take time and I refer back to our lack of friendlies but we are growing with each game, admittedly it's quite easy to improve on the performance v Sunderland but there were respectable chances for Diaby, Podolski, Giroud (corner) & Arteta and that sharpness will come and it will more than likely need to be there against Liverpool on Sunday if they play as they did against City yesterday. Look at Arteta's reaction after the game, it was one born of of frustration because they know they are nearly there, they just need to relax a bit more in front of goal. Lots of opportunities are getting snatched at in our attempts to get off the mark.
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