Where would we be if hyperbole was removed from football?

In a dark, dark place, that’s where.

So, of course, after thrashing Manchester United, beating Bayern Munich and then collecting all the points against Everton despite being knackered, the obvious thing to do would be assume Arsenal are going to win all the trophies.

We did it in pre-season, so why not, eh?

These were my initial thoughts when I started reading headlines claiming that Olivier Giroud said Arsenal could win the quadruple this season…and then I read his actual quotes. He didn’t say anything of the sort.

What did he say that would lead sub-editors to come to this sort of conclusion? He simply said that Arsenal would be tough to beat.

That’s quite a leap, right there.

Speaking to the official site, Giroud said “I think we are stronger mentally this year.

“We are all fighting for each other. We have a great togetherness and we want to achieve big things altogether. We are showing a lot of leadership, we have team meetings and we all want to contribute and bring qualities to the big matches.

“We are all looking in the same direction and we know we need to be 100 per cent in every game. If someone is a bit tired then someone else will battle and fight for each other. That’s the mentality we need to show through the season.

“If we carry on like that then we will be difficult to beat, especially with our efficiency.

“I don’t want to look too far forward because we need to keep it up and carry on this momentum. It’s only the 10th game in the league so we’ve got 28 to go, so it’s a bit early.

“We need to keep focused on what we are doing well and it’s for sure that we have a lot of confidence and we want to show that we can get stronger and stronger against the teams who come to play at the Emirates.

“We also want to qualify for the [knockout stages of the] Champions League so we’ve got big games to come so let’s see if we can keep it up.”

As you can see, he never even mentioned a quad.

Obviously we are going to win everything this year, but that’s no call for just making stuff up.