Alastair Brookshaw

The first is to say that I absolutely believe Giroud is good enough to lead our line. Whilst of course a truly elite striker would have been a wonderful addition I am secretly pleased that Giroud is going to get the chance to be the main man for another season (or at least half of one). Whenever I talk up Giroud I always refer to 2 matches from last season. The first was the 0-0 draw at Stoke right at the start of the season. It was his first start in the EPL, away at Stoke of all places, and yet for 90 minutes he out-fought and dominated both of Stoke’s huge, brutish centre backs. The lack of goals for the striker was of course what the media seized upon, but it was actually a hugely impressive debut that more insightful commentators might have written up very differently. The second game is the 3-2 victory over Brighton. He scored 2, and both had the hallmarks of another player all over them – Didier Drogba. Yes I know it was only Brighton, and I’m not actually saying he’ll reach those heights, but it

Clichy, and seemed to be getting to grips with the defensive side of the game too. But even if it hadn’t all gone horribly downhill for Santos he still wasn’t good enough to push us on a level, and so after all that expenditure we had to go into the market again, essentially paying twice for the same position. When you add all his fees to the cost of the Monreal deal you see immediately how ‘expensive’ some of these ‘bargains’ end up being. The same could be said with Gervinho. Unsurprisingly there are now calls from the fans to sign just someone, ANYONE, but truthfully I’d prefer giving Gnabry a chance to buying yet another ‘almost’ player for £10 million that we have to replace in 2 seasons time.