Stats suggest strikers could cost Arsenal EPL title

For the Arsenal fans out there who have never really got used to the fact that Olivier Giroud is the player picked by Arsene Wenger to be our main centre forward and to lead the line ever since the little boy inside Robin van Persie spat his dummy out and demanded to go to Man United, these stats will only reinforce your anti-Giroud stance.

I would point out, however, that the big Frenchman has improved his stats and performances every season since signing for Arsenal from the French Ligue 1 club Montpellier. And without him this season I reckon we would be nowhere near the race for the Premier League title, as Theo Walcott has pretty much failed to make any impact in the battle to be the club´s first choice through the middle and we have had to do without Danny Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez for most of the matches.

Having said that, the Sky Sports report that compares the four main strikers from the current top four clubs does not make happy reading for Arsenal fans. Compared to the Man City man Sergio Aguero, Leicester’s Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane of the spuds, Giroud is bottom of the list for combined goals and assists, shooting accuracy, shot conversion rate, big chances scored and big chance conversion rate.

The man we need to stop from scoring on Sunday, Vardy, has missed one more big chance than Giroud but he has also finished five more. So will it be Giroud’s fault if we falter? There is an argument for that, but stats do not tell the whole story and Giroud’s power and presence helps the team a lot.

Also, he is not too far off the league’s best with his stats and I think we could have expected more goals from the players around him as well. Maybe now that Alexis Sanchez is back and match sharp the Gunners will have that extra fire power to see us crowned EPL champions.

What do you think Gooners?

Tags Alexis Giroud Sanchez Walcott

14 Comments

  1. Giroud and Walcott brought out the best in eachother when Theo was given the chance to start upfront for a few games (also because Giroud was out/suspended). Against Man United and Leicester (away) we played our best football. It looks to me like Giroud got too comfortable again now Theo has to battle with Ox and Joel for the spot on the right.

    Giroud has been practically invisible the last month. Not saying Theo has been brilliant (far from it) but he hasn’t quite been given the chance from the start and he’s just not a player that comes in and breaks a 0-0 open for us, Giroud is.

    1. to all those giroud-lovers, the skysports article shows giroud coming below the others in all 4 categories.
      I happen to think stats DO tell the truth.
      here are the dimensions on which the strikers were compared:
      1. shooting accuracy,
      2. shot conversion rate
      3. big-chances-scored / big-chances-missed
      4. big-chance conversion rate
      Jamie Vardy 58.21% 26.87% 11/13 45%
      Sergio Aguero 60.38% 26.42% 8/10 44%
      Harry Kane 64.29% 21.43% 13/11 54%
      Olivier Giroud 53.45% 20.69% 6/12 33%

      giroud is a v.hard worker and i respect him for that.
      but arsenal can do better.
      at the moment, however, he’s far from our worse performer.

      1. 100% true. Giroud is very good but the stats prove that he is not the best. In the PL it is very important to have two types of strikers, we only have 1. Welbeck and Walcott do not score enough to be that striker.

    2. Stop giving Walcott excuses, when he wanted his contract improved he had no problem scoring and assisting from the wings, ever since he got his chance playing CF he thinks he no longer has to put team effort and play on the wings to accommodate Giroud. 1 goal in 16 games says it all, if you want to be a top CF you have to be able to score from either wings as well as the centre, that’s something Theo doesn’t want to accept.

  2. Giroud this, Giroud that.

    Just to be clear – Wenger likes to field a team with 10 players able to score…well realistically with the midfield able to score. That’s a fact.

    Also a fact is that collectively we haven’t scored as much as we should have. Especially wide/attacking midfielders. And for those who understand football, Giroud has been brilliant this year. Stop expecting him to be like Aguero or Suarez, he’s not that type of a player. He’s a target man, his job is to be the pivot in attack, not the driving force. Yes, he is one dimensional, but what he does is pure class (headers, hold-up, bringing other players into attack). He’s job in not dribbling, scoring goals out of nothing and sprinting past defenders..that’s Theo’s job sadly.

    as @Skandalouz summed up, Walcott is one of the “culprits”. If his form was better, the competition would probably bring the best out of Giroud and we would have two different options for our attacking tactics. But it’s not just about the competition – players don’t just get too comfortable or lazy when their place is secured, it also brings more pressure which can have an opposite effect! Giroud knows he’s the only option up front, he knows he’s the one who has to score, because if he doesn’t nobody will. The success of the whole team lies on his shoulders. You try living with this pressure. One missed chance and everyone rips you apart. If you know there’s someone else capable of your job then there’s no pressure, players can retain full confidence and just keep getting better.

    End of!

    1. No it is not this at all. Walcott has not got a chance at CF since he came back from injury. Up until his injury, he was doing very good. He is not really great on the wings as we all know. He is good as a CF, specifically he brings the best of Ozil-Alexis partnership which doesn’t happen with Giroud. If we have to win the PL, we have to instill Theo back as the CF and Giroud coming on as a sub.

    1. Henry is a god and one of the world’s best strikers of the last 20 years – but let us keep it real here. Henry 174 league goals in 8 seasons = 21.75/season – not 27. Even if you want to massage the figures in his favour and discount his poor last season it was “still only” 23.4 goals/season including all penalties. Take out his 22 penalty goals and it is 152 in 8 seasons = 19.0 NPGs/season. OG’s average for completed seasons is 13.66 (41/3). So TH14 on average got us 5.34 more goals a season from open play in the PL than OG presently does. Or put another way – an extra non-penalty goal every 7 games. Significant and meaningful difference but not quite the “double as many goals” claim.

  3. Giroud has his place, but we need a quality CF like Aguero or Suarez to provide the type of attributes (speed, dribbling and solo goals) that Giroud lacks. We have always had two CF’s with different skills sets (Smith, Wright), (Bergkamp, Wright), (Bergkamp, Henry) which worked well. Van Persie also wasn’t the quickest, but he was far more nimble than Giroud and way more skillful.

  4. Giroud is the target man that misses the target more often than not, but he score’s the more difficult chances.
    His hold up play isn’t being capitalised on like in previous seasons, when you had players like Ramsey running on to flicks and nods to score off Giroud.

    The problem lies with our attacking setup, formation and Wenger’s insecurity!

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