Olivier Giroud Remains a Conundrum for Arsenal and France Alike

“You’re not going to tell me that [Karim] Benzema isn’t as good as [Olivier] Giroud or [Kevin] Gameiro?” Samir Nasri is nothing if not direct and true to form, he didn’t disappoint the producers of Monday night’s edition of L’Equipe du Soir (as recounted here by Yahoo France, in French).

There are no surprises around Nasri’s view on Didier Deschamps’ current striker choices for France, or about his defence Benzema, his fellow member of "generation 1987"—the collective term used for a clutch of celebrated French talents born in that same year—especially given his own unhappy experiences with Les Bleus before his ultimate marginalisation from the international picture.

Neither is it surprising to see the focus placed on Olivier Giroud in Tuesday morning’s headlines in the country’s media. In a clutch of reports, Kevin Gameiro’s name has been chopped off; perhaps for brevity in some cases, but it’s hard to avoid the fact that the Arsenal striker is still a player whose inclusion continues to provoke debate like few others in the France picture.

Nasri’s assessment is a germane one. It cuts to the heart of what much of the French football-watching public feel and have often felt. Yet comparing Giroud and Benzema is also grossly unfair, and an exercise in futility. If the Arsenal man nominally replaced the Real Madrid forward for Euro 2016 following the latter’s off-field problems, that’s the only sense in which he filled in for him.

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The pair are chalk and cheese. Benzema is an instinctive talent, with an eye and a feel for a pass and ability to link with team-mates at speed that makes him something rare among forwards. Giroud is intelligent in a different way, using his size and strength to make himself an attacking focal point, while also running the channels with an effectiveness that is frequently overlooked.

Unfortunately for Giroud, assessments of him at both international and club level are too often based on what he’s not, rather than what he is. That he doesn’t have the lightest of touches is especially apparent in both environments, as he plays with two of the most technically adept sides in their respective competitions. He is rarely pretty on the pitch, and he is constantly castigated for it.

Giroud is unlikely to start the friendly with the Ivory Coast in Lens on Tuesday night, as the French aim to round off a positive year in style, but that’s no reflection on him. Deschamps knows exactly what he can contribute already. If France win in Lens, it will have been their 14th win of the year, a national record, in a year in which they were a coat of paint away (given Andre-Pierre Gignac’s late effort against the post in the Euro final) from winning a third major title on home soil. Giroud made his contribution to that, netting eight in 10 starts in the period from the start of the year to the end of the Euros.

He has still spent much of 2016 being pilloried. The boos that France supporters dished out only relented on the eve of the summer tournament, as his team-mates publically stood up for him—Gignac told L’Equipe (in French) after the friendly win over Cameroon that the catcalls were “ridiculous,” and the Arsenal striker received warmth from the crowd at Metz’s Stade Saint-Symphorien in the subsequent match with Scotland.

“It would be lying to say that it hadn’t affected me,” Giroud said after that game in Metz, as reported here by Eurosport.fr (in French). He’s a selfless team man, who focusses on the collective, and has generally hidden his disappointment well. Yet he is being tested now as never before.

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This season has been a tough one to date for Giroud, and the decline of his status at Arsenal seems as if it will be especially difficult to reverse. In this context, it bears pointing out that the Frenchman’s efforts for the club are widely underrated.  He has scored 85 times in 194 games since his arrival in north London, which is a respectable record, especially when you consider he offers more of an all-round package than just goals.

If we compare Giroud’s adaptation to English football to that of Didier Drogba, another late bloomer of a No. 9 who eventually arrived on the north side of the channel after a meandering route around French football, there’s further vindication of the Arsenal man. Giroud scored 39 times in his first two seasons at Arsenal (27 in the Premier League), while Drogba netted 32 (including 22 Premier League goals).

The divergence from that point onwards, as Drogba built himself into a Chelsea and Premier League legend, is clear, of course. Yet if Giroud’s career has never skyrocketed from that start, it has been steady. He has remained a regular contributor for the Gunners. In fact, only Sergio Aguero and Romelu Lukaku have scored more in the Premier League than the 59 Giroud has notched since signing for Arsenal in 2012.

Quite where he fits in now is the problem. Giroud’s usefulness is clear, as his recent turn as a substitute at Sunderland proved. He was the right option to clinch a game that Arsenal had dominated but were in grave danger of letting slip from their grasp. It recalled his similarly decisive entrance in the famous Champions League win over Bayern Munich last season, where he upset the opposition by giving them a different threat to deal with.

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Still, there can be little debate that Arsenal have played their best football this season with Giroud merely watching, as the connection between Alexis Sanchez and Theo Walcott has sizzled. Similarly with France, the increasingly complementary partnership between Antoine Griezmann—with whom Giroud frequently dovetailed quite effectively during the Euros—and Gameiro at club level with Atletico Madrid threatens to squeeze him out.

Deschamps and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger continue to value Giroud, but the truth, that both his club and national team are evolving, is unavoidable. Having just turned 30, you could understand why he might respond positively to the reported interest from Serie A, with AC Milan and Napoli both seemingly poised (as reported here by the Mirror). He would fulfil the need that Maurizio Sarri’s team have for that sort of figure after the injury to Arkadiusz Milik.

In the meantime, Giroud will continue to pitch in usefully for Arsenal and France. It might just be time, however, for him to go and search out the true appreciation that he might feel he deserves.