Where emotional Giroud went wrong In January

Olivier Giroud goes through purple patches where he scores in nearly every single game, but then he seems to hit some confidence wall and suddenly he can’t hit a barn door from two yards away. Last season the turning point came immediately after the Frenchman was publicly criticized by Thierry Henry on live tv, where our legend said: “You can’t win the League with Giroud.”

Giroud voiced his displeasure with the stinging attack, but then went on to prove the fact by not hitting the net for the next ten games, which saw the Gunners drop into third in the table. Fast forward to this season, and I can now tell you where it all went wrong this season. Up to Christmas, Olivier was in his purple patch and scoring for fun, but then in January he made the fatal mistake of being interviewed by the Arsenal Magazine.

In this interview (titled “Consistency is my target”) he was approaching the total of 84 goals previously reached by Robert Pires, and Giroud was asked if he now had something to aim for. “Yeah, of course.” he said. “I want to mark the history of the club, and for a striker you always do this by measuring how many goals you score and how many assists you give. I know the part that my team-mates play of course, but the most important thing you check is the goals of the striker. So yes, hopefully I can beat my friend Robert soon!”

Then he started making his targets for this campaign. “Yes, to be honest I would like to reach 25 goals this season, and after that why not keep going? Between 25 and 30 could be nice. But in the league, yeah, hopefully I could reach 25 – that would be a nice line,”

Since that interview, how many League goals has Giroud scored? That’s right. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Rien de tout! He remains firmly six goals below Pires’ total, and doesn’t look like surpassing it any time soon. And any chance of him reaching 25 in the League is now nearly a mathematical impossibility, unless he scores two in every remaining game…

Does this show that Giroud and words don’t go together very well?

Tags Giroud Robert Pires

14 Comments

  1. I don’t blame Giroud. He is what he is.
    I blame Wenger for not signing a top striker which would have won us the League

    1. BTW, I meant that all Giroud can do is do his best. And he is a decent striker. He has scored lots of Goals over the years and is a hard worker. I appreciate his hard work and efforts. But neither Walcott, Giroud or Welbeck are the main solution up front.

      we need someone of the likes of Lukaku, Kane, Vardy or an injury free Aguero. Better yet someone like Aubemeyang, Lewandowski, Ibrahimovic, Morata, Reus, Greizmann etc.

      This is frustrating even Ozil and Alexis now. Especially Ozil who is the PL assist leader.

      1. mentioning Morata and (Griezmann) among Auba, Lewa, Ibra and Reus is kinda misleading, considered how your other group consists of Aguero, Kane, Vardy and Lukaku, who are all better goalscorers than Morata (and Griezmann)

        But I agree, this is the box we need to pick from.

        If we manage to replace those who leave, as well as bringing in two top top world class striker+defensive midfielder/central defender, I’d say the squad is about good enough to take a dig at PL trophy and CL semi’s.

      2. If you read my comment further down, vardy, kane and giroud all play for about 170 to 180 minuts to score one goal (excluding penalties) in the PL

    2. Yea right……… Giroud is just being Giroud

      unfortunately we don’t need emotional beings….. We needed someone potent and Lethal !

  2. He says this every season, sometimes the target might change a little but whenever he is in a move patch or is over ten league goals he automatically starts talking about the next ten. What bothers me really is all the chances that go begging. If it was a case of being too closely watched as he’s our only recognised striker, or if GKs were absolutely pulling the stops, or the service was lacking due to injuries well then I could take that on the chin. But to miss so many brilliant opportunities, to not only win us points, but also title shots ..such was the importance and our reliance on the big man.

  3. Leave Giroud alone..why didnt wenger get someone better after all the warnings to get a striker before the season begun

    1. Players need to be called into question, if you let them slide well then you are telling them that that’s ok. These players deserve every bit of criticism as the manager gets, remember it was Gab and Coq which bollixed up the title charge at the worst possible moment. This wasn’t about an extra player here or an extra one there because the players on the pitch should have been good enough over these last three weeks. They are men and should be treated as so, saying leave my Oli alone is farcical. They need to be held to account, that is whats wrong at this club.

  4. I think we all agree that OG is doing everything he can, respect to him

    and i think we all agree we needed and still need a WC striker that will put some of those crying out chances in the back of the net which we create every game

    why o why don’t AW see it like it is when the whole footballing world’s been saying for years, in fact he always comments on how many missed chances we have had in every game, this alone frustrates fans

  5. Renato Augusto scored a peach of a goal for Brazil against Uruguay.

    Should Arsenal go for him?

    Yes, he’s a top top player – Thumbs up
    No, it’s just one goal stupid – Thumbs down

  6. welbeck is doing things correctly and with the newfound midfield you can expect giroud with Welbeck and Sanchez who has been on bad form. Teams are fouling the players but with anger in the side you can force issues by pressing the teams. With the team that has Elneny and Coquelin it can press and now that there is no weak player or attack minded like Ramsey,Wilshere it is good for the team.

  7. I have had a look at the stats for goals scored excluding penalties against minutes played. Format is:-
    Name, goals less penalties, minutes played, minutes per goal
    Aguero, 15, 1777, 118
    Lukaku, 17, 2419, 142
    Kane, 16, 2735, 171
    Giroud, 11, 1939, 176
    Vardy, 15, 2718, 181
    Ighalo, 14, 2565, 183
    Mahrez, 12, 2455, 204

    According to these stats, giroud compares well and is similar to kane, vardy and ighalo. Giroud also seems fairly resistant to the arsenal injury disease. I think we do need a world class striker but Giroud is probably better than us fans give him credit for.

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