Olivier Giroud is one of my favourite Arsenal players and the fact that Gooners everywhere are finally realising what a fantastic striker he is makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
Let’s start with the reason why Arsenal signed Big Sexy in the first place back in 2012. He was a poor man’s replacement for Robin van Persie. We knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it.
Therefore, instead of having all this expectation on his shoulders, there was actually very little excitement surrounding the signing of the France international. We were all too p**sed off over RvP running away to United.
Five years on and Giroud has scored a total of 99 goals in 229 appearances for Arsenal and assisted 41. Although what’s more impressive is his goal to minute ratio.
That’s 99 goals in 14,902 minutes of football, which is a goal every 150 minutes. Admittedly, that’s not fantastic. So, let’s take a look at his goals-per-minute since Alexis Sanchez signed for Arsenal in 2014.
Since the Chilean signed for Arsenal, Giroud’s stats have improved. Over the past three years, not including this season, he’s scored every 128 minutes.
But let’s look at just last season. Last season, he scored a goal every 111 minutes.
He’s not just improving in terms of stats, it’s the TYPE of goal Giroud scores that’s also crucial to the team. He comes on having not played all game and can find the back of the net out of nowhere – exactly as he did against Leicester.
Finally, Gooners are realising how huge the 30-year-old is for Arsenal.
When he came on against the Foxes, no one doubted that he was going to score. No one. He’s the type of striker we’ve always wanted and didn’t seem to realise we had: a proven goalscorer who can save the day and that we can rely on.
And while his goal celebrations have seemed a bit muted recently, potentially because of his lack of starts or maybe because of the speculation regarding his future at Arsenal, his response to finding the back of the net on Friday night proven how much this club really means to him.
God bless you Big Sexy!