Olivier Giroud

It’s 7 games. International football is ridiculously dumbed down on a tactical level, it’s about talent and luck/order of events/variance. If you actually have a manager that has a clue it’s obviously a bonus, but that’s a rarity at the international level, and even if they do they usually struggle to actually implement their ideas. Del Bosque and Löw deserve a bit of credit for their opportunism I guess, for seeing players set to play in a certain way and basically just not fucking things up. But that’s setting the bar low for credit. Deschamps, I repeat, lost to Portugal in the fucking euro cup on his home soil. He’s a clown, and the fact I even have to argue that is showing how low the bar for football discussion is on this forum these days.

Like I said, we all know how these guys fared, or would fare, at club level.

You cant win here though with you. Deschamps is shit when he loses to Portugal and lucky when he wins to Croatia.
Are you going to concede at least Portugal and Croatian managers have done well with their lesser talent then?

Think you’ve lost it mentioning Del Bosque, who clearly had success at both club and international level.

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Yeh, Del Bosque is probably the best of the lot, but he’s way past it as a club manager and was when he accepted the Spain job. And his job with the national team was more of maintaining the structure in place, the hard work was done and the foundation laid by Aragonés. I brought him up because like Martínez, Deschamps, and Löw, he’s not good enough (or never was good enough, in the case of the these three) for the club level anymore, and not a serious manager on anything but international level…

Which is the whole point. People saying Deschamps should suddenly be taken seriously because he won a world cup is, to use the words of @ocke, simple logic for a simple mind.

The point still stands though that giving Giroud credit for this World Cup is seriously reaching. To not have a single shot on target throughout an entire tournament is unforgivable for a striker.

People will do anything to find reasons to credit players that they like. I’m exactly the same.

I’m struggling to see what he did over the course of the World Cup to deserve credit because all he did was occasionally hustle defenders and every now and then he managed a little flick that and off. By and large he was distinctly average and probably the worst performing player in the starting 11 for France.

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Well yeah, Giroud is shit, that is beyond argument, the only people arguing otherwise are utter fanboys. You know you’re reaching when you start trying to say that Giroud’s shitness is excusable by selflessness that the most selfless 9 in recent history couldn’t match, and because a clown like Deschamps picked him :joy:

They are arguments not to be taken seriously, but because the ridiculous overrating of international managers’ merits is a constant pet peeve of mine, I’ve taken the bait.

And what of it? I can go on. How did Felipe Scolari do at club level? How did the incredibly basic tactics of Fernando Santos or Otto Rehhagel fare at club level? I’m stating the obvious. That there a very few posters around here that can see the obvious, when it happens to go against the shite spouted in the popular media, is another matter.

International managing is mostly setting a basic, easy to internalize structure and managing egos. Basically Zidane’s job at Real.

I actually pretty much agree with this summary tbh. I haven’t seen anybody claim he was anything special throughout the tournament.

I thought he was pretty much distinctly average and unspectacular even by my standards although I never got the sense he was being carried by the others. He did contribute though and he does deserve credit

For a striker those numbers are poor but in some of the games he played almost in midfield. Particularly the Belgium game

He was being booed when he replaced Benz, now look

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It was a very Welbeckian performance - contributed in certain ways but not the ways you really need a striker to and he has zero outstanding qualities in terms of technique or anything else really.

I will say he sometimes gets dumped on in extreme ways, which is also unfair… the guy is definitely likable and with the number of crap strikers we have had and the Premier League has seen, I think the “love” goes both ways - some people love to hate him; others love him like a big adorable teddy bear - I don’t think anyone is claiming he was a good enough striker to lead the line for Arsenal or even the France team tbh (but that is the nature of international football).

It’s seems necessary to say that I’m one of his bigger defenders on here (perhaps cos I’m mouthier than others rather than cos I love him the most lol), but you simply can’t excuse the fact he didn’t have a single shot on target despite being a starter for the majority of the tournament.

To not have a single shot on target as a striker over a whole tournament really is laughable, come on let’s be fucking honest.

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Yeah I don’t think anyone disagrees with that… job #1 of a striker is to create and facilitate danger in the final third, score goals, provide assists…

DAT LINK UP PLAY DOW! 65% of passes completed, 1 assist, 3.1 bad controls per game, 0.4 dribbles, and 0.6 fouls drawn. :heart_eyes: What would France have done without that dirty work!

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Well @sevchenko did make a fairly lengthy post explaining why it didn’t matter and six people liked it, so…

I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was reacting to the occasionally hyperbolic hate thrown his way… but either way I think those that consider the full numbers and performances for this world cup would find it underwhelming.

No desire to engage in this debate.
Just here to say again that I effing adore the handsome bastard.
Hope he finds a way to dissociate himself from Chelsea.

Just retire you won the world cup.
Just retire & become a model.

I have just spoken to Mr Giroud, he says, " I have played for two top English clubs, and I now have a World Cup winners medal, what the fuck does AC know"

Those were his exact words…He also rolled his rrrr’s like a genuine Spaniard…feckin good at everything is our Ollie…

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Which is the other top English club besides Chelsea? We have been very mediocre during his stint and it needs to be seen we will get of out that on the short term.

Come on now, with him here we won three FA Cups, I know how highly you value them.