Remain calm, all is well!

One of the hallmarks of global climate change denouncers is that they love taking an aberrant event and saying "Ha! I guess you can blame that on 'global warming,' ha ha!" or something equally thoughtful and intelligent.

They can't take a rebuttal that includes average annual temperatures on both land and sea, disappearing polar ice, droughts, or actual facts. No, it's the one snow in early April that proves that everyone in the scientific world is wrong and they're right.

They also have the support of "research" and "real scientists" who are paid by those who profit from unregulated emission of carbon into the atmosphere. This helps to lend legitimacy to their claims, too. You can say "but those people are paid to doctor up results and produce that information" and they'll say something strange and loud back at you just to shut you up.

Thus we have the reaction to Olivier Giroud's performance on Saturday versus Everton.

I want to make just a few points about the match.

1) I said on this blog after the Community Shield of Giroud, "Bring him on when others are tired and suddenly he looks fast and lively!" This is exactly what Wenger did on Saturday, and exactly how Giroud looked.

You're welcome.

2) What has happened to Arsenal?  Or should I say "Bolton-al?" Or "Ar-Stoke?"

Remember when Wenger teams played...um, without lumping the ball at a big lump in the middle?  It's starting to fade from memory now. And the attack is so impoverished that a player who managed 27 goals in two complete league seasons is the only thing that will help it.

I'm not sure what this means for the future, but this is certainly not the Arsenal of pleasing, attacking football that I first encountered at the beginning of Wenger's reign. His answer to needing goals is hoof it up the pitch to a lumbering big player.

Surely this is a sign of the end of days?  That Arsenal have to play Tony Pulis' tactics to win? No wonder he prefers a player who has never scored to Lukas Podolski!

3) The "Arsene knows!" folk are using the Saturday match to hail the improvement in the side, to trumpet the fighting spirit and character of the team, and generally to say that everything Wenger is doing is perfect and we're still on for the treble.

If you conveniently ignore the schoolboy errors and general lack of composure in the first 45 minutes, you can say just about anything you want, I suppose. What were the problems that put the side into 4th place again last season?

Conceding early from a set piece header? Check.
Playing a defensive line so high that when Per was robbed of the ball he was closer to the opponent's goal than the halfway line? Check.
Fullbacks the only way your attack has width, exposing the back line to a simple counter attack? Check.

Of course everything is fine because the second goal shouldn't have stood. The mistakes that have been happening for years?  Those are...well...those aren't important!   There is no global warming!

4) I've yet to see one person who loves Giroud and thinks he's infallible who isn't already a self-professed worshiper of Arsene Wenger. Makes me wonder if it's possible there's another agenda at work.  Hmm...

5) And lastly, like those who are paid to produce favourable results for the climate change denouncers, you have to speculate on why seemingly neutral bloggers manage never to have a bad word to say about the manager or his pet players.

Can any of these people who have routinely denounced Lukas Podolski apply the same critical eye to Olivier Giroud? No? Well, I suppose that's just pure coincidence and these people aren't being compensated by the club, through money, special access, or both.

So that's it, there's no global warming, Arsenal don't need an upgrade at the striker position or cover at the back, remain calm, all is well.