London - What will it take for Arsenal fans to really love Olivier Giroud? Yes, he is appreciated by the home faithful at the Emirates but not to the same degree as other top strikers.
Sergio Aguero, Diego Costa and Harry Kane are worshipped at their clubs. But with similar goal- scoring exploits this season, Giroud doesn’t get anywhere near the same level of affection from his fans or the rest of the football world. He is valued as a player but not unconditionally loved. He deserves much more credit.
Of the strikers mentioned, only Aguero has a better minutes per goal rate in all competitions this season than Giroud, who is a good link man and an important source of goals for Arsenal.
He started the season in fine form and then was unlucky with injury but he hit the ground running as soon as he returned.
After his performance in the Champions League first leg against Monaco, everyone rushed to criticise and dissect his game. If Costa or Aguero have a bad game, there is no discussion. With Giroud it is as if he always has to play well to win people over. He’s never allowed an off-day.
What has been impressive is the way he has bounced back mentally from that, scoring in four of his last five games. The only match in which he didn’t score was against Manchester United in the FA Cup, when he started on the bench.
The circumstances of his arrival are part of the problem for Giroud (right). Arsenal fans have been fed a diet of pace and movement ever since Arsene Wenger arrived. From Marc Overmars and Nicolas Anelka to Thierry Henry and Robin van Persie, Wenger’s forwards have always been about great mobility and raw speed.
Giroud is not as quick or graceful across the turf but he was bought as a replacement for Van Persie. He is an entirely different type of player, so that he has shaken off any unfair comparisons with the Dutchman is to his credit. It’s also interesting that Danny Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez were signed almost as Giroud’s replacements but the Frenchman is still the go-to man in the middle.
His involvement shows how Wenger’s philosophy has almost come full circle. When he arrived he sold John Hartson and instead opted for pacy forwards. Now he has reverted to Giroud, who is in a similar mould - there’s not a great deal of difference between a Welsh battering ram and a French one.
Not to say they are one-dimensional players, far from it. Hartson was technically sound, a giant in the air and provided a different attacking dimension. Giroud offers the same. But Wenger now seems to want physicality back at the top of the side.
That means the team have had to play in a different way, though that is not a bad thing. Giroud’s link-up play is exceptional and Arsenal use him like a backboard, holding up play and waiting for others to run from deep and join the attack and he has been at the heart of many of Arsenal’s best team goals.
Although he does not have the same movement as previous Arsenal greats, he is versatile and wholehearted, and that has endeared him to most of the fans. It goes without saying how powerful he is in the air and that has opened up a route to goal that has been for so long ignored by Arsene Wenger.
Wenger has an outstanding track record of improving strikers - I witnessed how he transformed Emmanuel Adebayor - and he is doing the same with Giroud. His only focus is on what players can do. And you can see in Giroud the benefits of having a manager who believes in you.
Giroud has talked about playing out of his comfort zone to try to improve. He has done that and hopefully Arsenal fans will come to love him more. But ultimately for any striker, it shouldn’t matter what you look like or how you play, as long as you offer goals. Luckily for Giroud, he does just that.
Daily Mail