Giroud seems to be somewhat of a marmite player, you either love him or hate him.
I think as some have alluded to, to live up to the expections of some of the strike force we’ve had over the last 25 years is an almost seemingless impossible task to win some fans over.
In general, I would imagine most would always prefer the grace, speed and elegance in a striker. Someone who makes it look so easy. That’s what guys like Wright, Bergkamp and most noteably Henry were able to incapulsate so well.
When you compare Giroud to that kinda calibre, you’re always going to look pretty subpar in comparsion. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been of use to the club.
Remember when he joined and he didn’t score for something like the first 8 or 9 games and looked seemingly to be a flop? It took his time to find his feet and once the first goal came, he’s been scoring on a very solid basis.
As I’ve mentioned before, I can totally understand the frustration many have with him, and he has had periods of inconsistencies with his goal scoring, but if you rewind back to 5 years ago, and then think of the expections we would’ve had for him, I think he turned out to be a way better signing than many woukd’ve imagined. And let’s be honest, pretty much every player at the club, bar probably Alexis, goes through patches of inconsistent runs, so I think it’s been unfair at times to lay so much of the blame solely on Giroud, when for a long time, he was realistically our only striker.
98 goals, and god knows how many assists. Willing to track back and defend. Sure, he’ll never be highly acclaimed in a club that has a rich catalogue of phenomenal strikers, but I feel at some point, will look back at some moments and be grateful for his time he gave to us, and being part of the group that ended our long drought without a trophy.
Not to mention, one heck of a fetching beard :giroud: