Antonio Conte often spoke about the intricacies and sophistication of his conception of the striker role. Olivier Giroud has the experience Michy Batshauyi lacked, but did not show much nuance or variation in his play against Swansea City.
Since arriving from Arsenal at the end of January, Olivier Giroud has as many Premier League starts for Chelsea as Michy Batshuayi did in the preceding season and a half. Giroud obviously has the experience Batshuayi did not, both in the Premier League and overall. Experience, though, was only one part of Antonio Conte’s explanations for why Batshuayi was a perpetual substitute, despite his high goals-per-minute record.
Conte wanted a striker who not only logged the minutes in the top flight but could play the role in his particular way. Whenever a reporter asked Conte about the prospects of a Batshuayi start, Conte spoke about how difficult the role is, his specific tactical and technical demands, and how Batshuayi was simply not quite ready. Conte backed up his words with his lineup choices. If Alvaro Morata was unavailable, he would use Eden Hazard as a false-nine in the 3-4-3. If he wanted a formation change, he would use Hazard as a shadow striker in the 3-5-2. Conte built his alternative tactics on the premise that Batshuayi was not ready to lead – or even share the lead – up top.
Conte had no such reservations about Olivier Giroud. Giroud started his second Premier League game with Chelsea, against West Bromwich Albion. Two months later, Giroud and Alvaro Morata played together in the 3-5-2 – the first time Antonio Conte used the true two-striker formation at Chelsea.
Giroud has already scored key goals for Chelsea. He powered the comeback against Southampton in the Premier League with a brace, and opened the scoring against Southampton in the FA Cup semi-final.
His scoring rate, though, is still well behind Batshuayi’s as Blue. The Frenchman has played 640 minutes for Chelsea, scoring four goals: one every 160 minutes. Batshuayi averaged a goal every 93 minutes for the Blues. In his first season with Chelsea he played just more than Giroud has to date – 702 minutes across three competitions – and scored nine goals.
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But Antonio Conte rarely cited Batshuayi’s final product in explaining his decisions. In fact, only recently did Conte bring up his strikers’ output, referring to Alvaro Morata’s low goal tally after the game against Swansea.
In that game, Giroud cut a one-dimensional figure. He worked himself into good positions, but made little effort to adapt those positions to all the things that go wrong in an actual football game, let alone one in played in a continuous downpour. If a through-ball came at a different angle than his run, he let the ball run on. If the ball-carrier passed to someone else while Giroud was primed to receive, he did not open up for the next pass or clean up anything that might come across the face of goal. On long-balls up from the defence, he was waiting for the pass rather than fighting for the second ball.
He responded to many of these micro-setbacks with a look of exasperation, throwing his arms up in the air and occassionally shouting at his teammates. Eden Hazard, Cesc Fabregas, Victor Moses and Emerson all took their turns getting an earful.
Perhaps Giroud expects more from creative play-makers like Hazard and Fabregas. He has visibly high standards, which have motivated his teammates to raise their game and intensity to his level. If all he is doing is driving them to be as good as him, no one can complain.
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But Giroud has to do more than expect service and put shots on net. There is the entire complexity of Antonio Conte’s system – pressing, hold-up play, creating and moving into space, playing off of Eden Hazard, developing a rapport with Cesc Fabregas. Only at the end of a long chain of events – and amongst many other plays that do not develop that far – can he take the final touch.
Chelsea had the opportunity last summer to buy a striker who has a high finishing rate, but also has the tendency to point to where he wants the ball and then throw a strop when he does not get it on his terms. They decided not to set a club record for Romelu Lukaku. Antonio Conte wanted more than a finisher, else he would have done more with Michy Batshuayi.
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Olivier Giroud has been a positive addition to the side, although the Batshuayi question will be the subject of debate for years to come. But whoever plays any form of No. 9 for Antonio Conte must do more than just score goals. Strikers ultimately have only job, but under a coach like Conte that job has many small and significant components.