A Van Persie-Giroud partnership? And Podolski? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month

By Phil Gregory

Arsenal.com published an interesting article on our new signing Olivier Giroud. The part that caught my eye was the debate around whether Giroud will be a starter with Robin or not (leaving aside all contract chat for now).

In it, Philippe Auclair said “I can imagine a 4-4-1-1 with Robin van Persie playing in a Bergkamp role; I can imagine a new version of a 4-4-2; and I can imagine Robin playing on the right as an inverted winger too. All sorts of combinations, but I don’t think Robin van Persie‘s presence will harm his chances of featuring in the first XI. I still think it is possible to have Lukas Podolski, Giroud and Van Persie in the same team, and that is a terrific prospect”. 

That’s certainly an interesting prospect, playing Giroud with Robin. I’m not convinced it will happen however.

For one, despite Giroud’s undoubted quality, I can’t see us moving Robin from that central striking berth given his effervescent performances last season. The system thrives on Robin dropping deep to get involved in play, which leaves the opposition centrebacks a real dilemma: do they follow Robin, and leave space in behind for the pace of Gervinho and Walcott to exploit, or do they allow Robin to drop off and support the build-up play?

Clearly, the latter isn’t a great option, as with our usual three classy central players we dominate possession against most sides anyway, so the defence can’t just pass him off to an already stretched central midfield area -we’ll dominate the ball even more, and the opposition four defenders will effectively be marking two wide players.

Auclair suggests that Robin could play  wider to accommodate Giroud centrally, but again, why would you move Robin from a position where he has been so impressive? Moreover, as we say when moving centrebacks to fullback last season, playing in different positions places different strains on the body, and we’d be likely to see Robin get injured more often. He’d also have to cover more ground which wouldn’t help with that either, plus do you really want Robin further away from goal?

Neither can I see us switching back to a 442/4411 formation. Our midfield three is vital to our possession game, and our wide attackers thrive on being able to cut inside and wouldn’t be as effective in a left/right wing position.

There’s also the matter of substitutes and the squad: a two striker system would require four strikers ready to go, and with Bendtner seemingly on his way out it looks like we’re aiming for three strikers, with Chamakh serving as third back-up.

There are benefits to starting Olivier, of course. His height and aerial ability would come in useful in winning his balls and crosses, an area where we are notably not to great in. On the whole though, I can’t see us making wholesale changes to the shape of the side for one signing, but to know for sure we’ll have to wait for the first day of the season.