The rumours surrounding Arsene’s admiration for Benzema have been around for several years now. He ticks all the boxes for a striker – big, strong, quick, good finisher and at 27 just reaching his peak, although the sell-on price in 4 years would represent a loss.
Any player who can score 87 goals in 188 games for Real Madrid playing alongside greedyguts me me me Ronaldo must have some quality. Benzema also provides plenty of assists and works hard for the team. He’s no Prima Donna, he doesn’t dive or spend ages lying on the floor pleading to the ref when he’s tackled. He’s a good honest footballer.
I think we all know that Cavani is out of our reach (even if we want him in the first place), Higuain apparently has a ridiculously high buy-out clause, so I reckon if we do sign a big name striker then there is only one candidate out there.
The question of course is whether he is any better than Giroud. My answer would be that he is as much an improvement on Giroud as Petr Cech is on Szczesny, and if we want to go to the next level we will be dealing in smaller incremental improvements. Szczesny is 8 years younger than Cech and may be prepared to bide his time whereas Giroud is a year older than Benzema.
Benzema is more mobile than Giroud, he is quicker and more effective in tight spaces and a better finisher. He tracks back for Real more than Giroud does for Arsenal but maybe wouldn’t be required to do so if playing up top in a 4:5:1 for us.
Is he too much like Giroud? – maybe. What would we do with Giroud if we signed Benzema considering we have Sanchez to score the goals? – good question, I have no answer for that.
Personally I’d like to see Benzema at Arsenal, but I can only see that making sense if we sell Giroud and I think that is unlikely.
Rasp