I must have had that scrubbed from my memory MIB-style.
It’s unfair on him but the Monaco meltdown really sticks out in my mind along with his dry spell during the Leicester season. I know all strikers can go cold but it was such a bad time to go cold.
It’s wishful thinking as much as anything but pretty much always reckoned if we’d signed Auba instead of Laca we’d all feel a lot better about Giroud. And we might even have a EL to our name…
Oli was pretty fucking good off the bench tbf to him. His mins-per-goal off the bench was better than Solskjaer when he was at Arsenal.
It isn’t hating, at least not unjustified hating. You bring up his CV as though it’s not hugely contribured to by other players. WC with France, EL with Chelsea, none of these were won with him being the main guy.
Effective and productive isn’t really much different to average in a relative sense. All footballers in the top leagues are great players. Relative to other top forwards, Giroud is average.
He isn’t the only reason we didn’t win the league but he was certainly a significant step below the Ozil, Sanchez, Cazorla-type players that he had around him and they would have been better served playing with a better forward.
And Giroud being clutch is not what triggered this lol this thread has been going on for a lot longer than that.
IMO being clutch requires being reliable in big moments across numerous instances, it’s not necessarily having a sprinkling of contributions where the goal comes late in the game.
To me, Giroud isn’t reliable enough because he isn’t good enough. He’s a decent forward at decent clubs so he will undoubtedly score key goals from time to time, I just dont believe he has the quality of a regular high-level guy. Also, Milan are a tier below any top Euro side imo.
Like I said, if people were just saying he’s a decent forward with a good all-round game I probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
I think what really gets me is some of the Serie A coverage we have here that talks about him as a guy who “led Milan to the title” as if Rafael Leao was just a figment of our imagination.
Back heel assist for Ramsey’s FA cup winner in 13/14? Ending the trophy drought, you don’t remember that moment?
There’s plenty more clutch moments he had during his time at Arsenal
Shame Benzema had to get injured.
@sevchenko you got Giroud’s record against the big 6 handy whilst at Arsenal by any chance ?
Best I could find is his total PL record against teams.
He also set up the winner versus Chelsea in the FA Cup Final within a minute of his introduction off the bench
So that’s
1 in 14 vs Chelsea ?
1 in 18 vs United ?
4 in 18 vs City ?
4 in 18 vs Spurs ?
8 in 17 vs Pool ?
18 in 85 playing in front of Ozil, Cazorla and Sanchez sounds pretty average to me lol
Giroud to Ramsey again with a difficult assist 
It’s why I laugh when people try and minimize his all round play and link up abilities
Are these not big moments for the club? With silverware on the line?
Where are some examples of people saying this? If anything, that’s what he generally does get credit for.
I don’t remember a ton from that day tbh. 
I’ll have to take your word for it.
I think it’s incorrect to conflate big game scoring record with being “clutch”.
Sure Giroud has score goals in big games I would label all of those goal clutch. You can be clutch against lesser opposition for example.
Yeah but at the same time, being clutch is also about showing up in the big moments and as a striker a big part of that is scoring goals against the best sides.
Before him we had RVP and after, we had Aubameyang, who would both be considered top quality.
But in between we had Giroud, who could be described as adequate, at best.
As a main striker he played in front of some of the best midfields in Europe.
But for us, he had the unique accolade of not scoring in fifteen consecutive PL games, as well as not getting any goals for France in their World Cup winning side and arguably Wenger’s persistence with him cost us at least a PL title.
There are plenty of average players that have won trophies and Giroud is certainly one of those.
Same story with most Arsenal fans RE Giroud
Do you have to hand the stats for the other teams strikers during that period?
Need @sevchenko to post Aguero’s and Suarez’s etc
I only want the stats for that specific time period against the big teams please. Then I can decide how “average” Giroud was
