Arsenal have announced the long awaited transfer of Alexandre Lacazette from Lyon, so let’s take a look at what this transfer means for Olivier Giroud and how the two compare.
The strikers enjoyed very different seasons last time out with Lacazette making his way to 45 appearances for Lyon, scoring 37 goals with a total playing time of 3,480 minutes.
On the other hand, Giroud struggled through the whole season. While he made only 5 appearances fewer (40 games), and scored 16, his game time was reduced to 1,780 minutes, half that of Lacazette.
Both players have different physical attributes and the way they contribute to their teams is different. Giroud is limited to playing only in a central attacking role while Lacazette can be effectively deployed on either flank as attacking winger as well as through the middle.
Goal threat
As mentioned earlier, Lacazette leads with the number of goals scored at 37 compared to Giroud’s 16, but with far more minutes on the pitch.
When converted to per-match statistics, Lacazette scores almost one goal per match while Giroud needs a bit more than two games to do the same.
The total amount of shots and their shot accuracy suggest that the ex-Lyon forward shoots twice as much as Giroud (2.77 – 1.34 shots per-game) while maintaining a better shot accuracy with 65% of all his shots on target. Giroud hits the target in 59% of cases.