Overtaken by Theo Walcott, vilified by fans of both club and country and made into a punchline by a media who simply think he’s more of a pretty boy than a top class striker, life cannot be easy for Olivier Giroud.
The Frenchman’s a bit of a heartthrob, but that shouldn’t prevent him from being a top class striker. It may not be fair that he has the looks and the skill, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
The truth is that Giroud is a top class striker. He hasn’t got lightening pace or even brute strength, but, in a phrase made awkward by the gorgeousness of the man, he has a good body and knows what to do with it. Last season’s 17 goals in 25 appearances in a campaign that also included a broken leg shows that he really is a good player.
But the most important thing about Giroud is that he is a confidence player. It’s unsurprising that a man who spends just that much time on his hair would have a confidence issue, really. He seems to score frequently whenever he’s amongst the goals.
Most strikers are the same. They get a taste for blood when the ball hits the back of the net, and they can sniff it out after that. And this week against Denmark, Giroud started up front for France and within four minutes had found the net twice.
Not bad for a man who was booed off the pitch by his fellow countrymen after a poor performance in September’s international break.
But these two goals were gifts given to him by Leicester City stopper Kasper Schmeichel, who was in goal for Denmark that night. He inexplicably let Giroud’s first shot past him and it dribbled into the goal. Then he flapped at another shot and pushed it right into the path of the Arsenal striker to give him his second of the game.
France, since they are the hosts of Euro 2016, can only play friendlies until the summer, but were placed into a group so that they’d play in friendlies with the other teams in that group who were, in all the other games, playing for points. So it might not be the greatest of feats, scoring two goals that should never have been scored in a friendly against Denmark. But nevertheless he scored them.
The goals aren’t what should matter to Arsenal fans, though. It’s the confidence. What Wenger should be looking for from Giroud is a man whose knack for scoring goals takes him to all the right positions in the box, just as he did at the weekend for France.
Theo Walcott is not a natural finisher, but he has pace and a dribbling ability that Giroud could only dream of. What Giroud has, by contrast, is a finishing ability and a classy way of getting amongst the goals. These two things taken together are heaven sent for the Gunners because it means that they can make changes up front based on the game. Most teams don’t have that combination of qualities up front, but Arsene Wenger is able to completely change the way his team plays by making one sub up front. In other words he has the ability to turn the game on its head in one swoop.
But none of that is possible without confidence. When you have two strikers like that who can get amongst the goals, it’s hard to keep confidence high in both, certainly if you’re only playing with one striker. Egos are bruised by being placed on the bench.
But the confidence should be high in both Giroud and Walcott after the international break, and Wenger will be tasked with keeping both men happy. If he can, Arsenal are sitting in a good position for a title challenge, and there will be goals in their team.
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