Thierry Henry believes that Olivier Giroud won’t be happy with his role as a supersub for Arsenal, despite the fact that is all he was ever purchased to be.

Circumstances conspired to thrust Giroud into the top striker role at Arsenal, but that was never the main plan. Robin van Twatface’s decision to leave and the inability of the club to afford/sign another top-notch striker meant they had to turn to Giroud – and he’s done more than an adequate job, despite public opinion.

Speaking on Sky Sports on Monday night, Henry said, “He can be a plan B but I’m not sure if he is going to be happy coming off the bench. You win a title like that. We had Sylvain Wiltord doing that for us. He came on, did the job and did very well.”

Speaking on TalkSport this morning, Ray Parlour was discussing Henry and how Wenger was right to insist that the Frenchman gave up his media duties if he wanted to be a youth coach at the club.

He pointed one potential problem – what would Henry do if he was required to coach a youth game on a Monday night when he was expected to be on Sky Sports? The other issue is having an Arsenal coach regularly in the media talking about players at the club and then having to face them at Colney the following day.

In regards to Giroud, since arriving at Arsenal he has scored 85 goals in 143 starts and 51 sub appearances. 13 of his goals have come from the bench.

He has 59 goals and 24 assists in 139 Premier League games –meaning he scores or creates a goal once every 1.6 games.

He also has 11 goals and 4 assists in 19 FA Cup appearances, and 10 goals and 5 assists in 28 appearances in the Champions League.

Will he be happy as a supersub? Probably not. Is he going to grumble about it? I doubt it.