Chelsea: Extend Olivier Giroud’s contract and end all the nonsense
Chelsea’s outstanding Olivier Giroud is linked with yet another world-class side as the club doddles on an extension for one of the world’s top strikers.
Here we go again, yet another world-class side has set their sights on Chelsea’s best striker, Olivier Giroud, as a transfer target. The latest entrant, Juventus in Serie A. Why not? The latest statistics for 2020 indicate that Giroud has the best goals-per-minutes played than any other striker in the Premier League in 2020. That’s right, any other striker in the EPL. H
That’s no surprise in some quarters. Commentators have been saying for months that Giroud has been underrated, underused, and underappreciated at SW6 and deserves an extension. The statistics just happen to bear that out. Though, just paying attention to the flying Frenchman’s game should be enough for anyone to realize that the World Cup winner is still at the top-of-his-game and amazingly at the young age of 34, is seemingly getting even better.
Manager Frank Lampard should have realized after the 2019/20 campaign, at the tail end of which Giroud along with Christian Pulisic and Willian rescued a moribund Chelsea side to earn Champions League qualification, that the Frenchman deserved minutes in a reasonable yet meaningful rotation. Instead, the minutes were hard to come by again until recently for Giroud.
Since being reinserted into the striker’s rotation, he has again justified the gaffer’s confidence by scoring goals and in the process winning games and/or rescuing a point for the oft-misfiring Blues. The latest metrics have only served to justify statistically what observers of his game have readily seen and acknowledged, that Giroud is still one of the best strikers in world football. Period. Ironically, it is his own club, Chelsea (as his previous club Arsenal didn’t), that doesn’t seem to recognize that what they are seeing is true quality in attack. An attribute that is sorely lacking at present for Chelsea. The man is an anomaly, an older striker who is getting better with age.
A previous article arguing for a contract extension for Giroud noted,
"To quote an old aphorism, “Aging is a matter of mind. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”"
Giroud evidently doesn’t mind. The striker has always been a favorite of this author, and even while he tore apart Chelsea almost every time he was inserted (mostly as a substitute by Arsene Wenger), his talent was appreciated. His acquisition here was looked upon as a transfer masterclass by the Blues. He hasn’t disappointed. And he won’t in the future.
With Juventus, Inter Milan, and who knows how many other sides will be raising their hands to try to bring the French master into their sides, it’s clearly time for the mostly misfiring and sliding Blues to do the right thing and sign Giroud to an extension for two more years with an option for a third and end this foolishness once and for all.
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It’s been said here previously that when Giroud plays for Chelsea lately he usually scores. Evidently, that’s fairly accurate. At least as far as scoring more per minute played than anyone else in the Premier League goes. If that isn’t good enough for an extension, what is? Chelsea has to do the right thing and extend Giroud’s contract. And Lampard has to continue to do the right thing, which he has been doing of late, and play the Frenchman as often as is reasonable.
Lampard has two other excellent strikers to deploy which is fortuitous. It has been suggested in these pages that he try a 4-1-3-2 formation rotating two of his three strikers up front to place maximum pressure on opposing defenses and maximize the talent he has available in the striker position. With Giroud, Timo Werner, and Tammy Abraham to deploy, it would be a very prudent way to utilize his striking power.
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Hopefully, he’ll give it a try. Chelsea is floundering. They should turn to Giroud and these two other excellent strikers to try to take them out of this tailspin. Just a suggestion, but after the Manchester City debacle, why not give it a try?