Arteta

I haven't picked out some pie in the sky figures.
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Well you have, and anyway Citys would still be more...

Yaya £250m
David Silva £168m
Fernandinho £145m
Jesus Navas £139.275m
Jack Rodwell £35m

See, Citys is way more expensive than ours.

In fact even Norwich

Hoolahan £75m
Snodgrass £86m
Tettey £3000m

are more expensive than ours.

Anyway values are irrelevant, Giroud has not scored as many as we'd like with the quality of players we've got in midfield.
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Absolutely. I only put down est. values to highlight the fact that sometimes we underestimate the key strengths of the team.

Well you have, and anyway Citys would still be more...
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And are they out performing the Arsenal midfield?

Yes.

Dj, there is only one Adrian Durham.

Yaya and Fenandinho v Arteta and Flamini
City have scored 69 in 26 compared to our 52 in 28, suggests the creativity is very much in their favour. Especially as Aguero has missed a lot of games.

For a lot of people is seems a striker is a striker is a striker, i.e. they all perform the same function, but clearly that isn't the case.

I'm getting fed up with trying to defend Giroud from the reactionary bashing he gets on here, when he is a perfectly decent striker, but one which we all agree we need to improve on. Giroud plays his best football by far when he has pace either side of him - in fact the whole team looks better. Last season he was at his best when he had Walcott and Podolski either side of him, when they were able to play it off him and make runs in behind.

In some ways it's irrelevant how many fantastic playmakers you put behind him because there are certain runs that Giroud is simply not capable of making due to his lack of pace. He's always going to benefit more from players like Walcott or the Ox than he does from Cazorla or Rosicky.

I'm not trying to excuse his often sub-par finishing, and poor heading for someone of his stature, an it's clear he is not the sort of striker who is capable of creating a goal out of nothing, but he gets criticised so often for performances where the team does not play to his strengths.

Why choose Arteta and Flamini? How about Arteta and Ramsey?

Now if you are isolating goal scoring and assists.

Simply, would we be further ahead of our present league position if we had Negredo and Auguero as our strikers?

performances where the team does not play to his strengths.
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Do you think we would win the league or be even further ahead of where we are if we packed the team with players who played to Giroud's strengths?

or would we be doing better if we had a striker/s who played to the present midfield's strengths?

Aguero would be a dream, but there are very very few Aguero's going.

Negredo has hardly set the league alight. In fact he has barely outperformed Giroud, and if we had him in our team he would not have made a big difference at all.
9 goals in 24 games is hardly great. Less assists than Giroud as well. And he has the likes of Aguero, Silva, Yaya to play with!