da casino： Currently trailing Arsenal’s top scorer ‘own goal’ for the season by one strike, our Gooners drinking inside the Football Transfer Tavern are wondering whether any striker in the Premier League splits opinions as much as their very own Olivier Giroud does.
da stake casino： Branded a donkey one week only for fickle fans to be licking their lips at a sumptuous strike from the Frenchman the next, Giroud appears to be one of those players who is criminally underrated, yet still does have some deficiencies in his game of course.
Often branded not clinical enough to fire Arsenal to a sought-after Premier League title triumph, those opinions are all good and well but if the truth be told, Gunners fans will be hoping he can stay fit for the entire season.
With Danny Welbeck ruled out until Christmas and Theo Walcott not having really inspired anybody that he’s a true centre forward during his run outs in that position, Giroud is the club’s only real out-and-out forward so neutrals believe Gooners should be getting behind the Frenchman.
Now in his fourth season at Emirates Stadium, Giroud has proved a good acquisition with a current Premier League strike rate of 42 goals in 101 appearances and this is hardly horrific for somebody who is 6 ft 4 in, yet is also rather neat with the ball on the ground to boot.
While it is obvious that Giroud needed assistance in the past transfer window with the arrival of a top class centre forward to compete with, he’ll have to carry the striking torch alone and to be honest, for every big chance that he misses, he has usually got back on the goalscoring trail soon after in fairness.
The former Montpellier man will continue to divide opinions in North London but for the time being, we’ve devised five facts about the striker that you might not know already.
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Click on the image below to reveal the 5 things you didn’t know about Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud.
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He got to 50 goals in England quicker than Didier Drogba
On social media of late, some Arsenal fans have been retweeting an old tweet that mentioned that Olivier Giroud actually reached the goalscoring milestone of 50 strikes in England faster than Chelsea legend Didier Drogba.
Often used as a scapegoat by Arsenal fans for when things are going badly, it appears that Giroud is often attacked due to his sometimes mamby pamby attitude when checking his hair on the pitch with ArsenalFanTV favourite Claude having previously claimed he’s a world class model!
But if the truth be told, Giroud is actually a rather neat footballer for someone who is 6 ft 4 in and can score an entire range of goals as opposed to simply being a beanpole striker who registers headers.
As mentioned at the outset, he’ll continue to divide opinions with some choosing to ignore the fact that he scored in a big fixture away at Manchester City last season but stats are stats and if Giroud metaphorically moved on from Arsenal tomorrow, a lot of Gooners would sum up that on the whole, he did a rather good job.
Both he and Koscielny were team-mates at Tours in 2008/09
Having represented four French clubs prior to signing for Arsenal back in 2012, Olivier Giroud was on the books of then Ligue 2 side Tours from 2008 to 2010 ahead of returning to Stade de la Vallée du Cher on loan again after signing for Montpellier.
Now a team-mate of Laurent Koscielny for both club and country, both Giroud and Koscielny were actually club team-mates before signing for Arsenal with the pair both on the books at Tours in the 2008/09 season.
With Giroud retaining his preferred number 12 shirt back then and Koscielny boasting the number five instead of six during their spell in Ligue 2, the pair have mimicked eachother’s route up the French footballing ladder ending up at the elite level with Arsenal at the end of their journeys.
He is Catholic with a tattoo owing to that faith
With many footballers nowadays boasting tattoos that owe to their faith or beliefs, Olivier Giroud is no different.
A follower of the Catholic faith, Giroud boasts a tattoo on his right arm that contains a script from Psalm 23 in Latin, reading “Dominus regit me et nihil mihi deerit” which means “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” in English.
In the past, the French international has previously admitted that he is a “very believing person.”
“I don’t cross myself before my games but I do a little prayer,” he also confessed.
A former boss of his said he’d never play at the elite level
Now a fully fledged French international of 39 senior caps, playing at World Cup’s and in the UEFA Champions League, the elite level was never predicted as somewhere Olivier Giroud would end up by his former manager at Grenoble, Mehmed Bazdarevic.
A former Yugoslavia and Bosnia international himself, Bazdarevic infamously fell out with Giroud during the players’ spell with his first club between 2005 and 2008 with Bazdarevic claiming Giroud: “does not have the capability to play at the elite level.”
While some Arsenal fans may of course agree with that statement nowadays, the French international has indeed proved to Bazdarevic that he did reach the elite level all of his own accord.
As of May 2014, Olivier Giroud’s net worth was $245 million
While Giroud haters will claim that he’s a donkey of a striker, he is indeed a rather successful donkey.
According to a 2014 ‘People With Money’ report that summarised the world’s highest paid sports-people, as of May 2014, Giroud was recorded to be worth an estimated £245 million.
Of course on a handsome new salary at Emirates Stadium, this is just a portion of Giroud’s net worth with the striker having also appeared in huge deals with world renowned brands such as Hugo Boss and Covergirl cosmetics, not to mention boasting a ‘With Love From Olivier’ perfume line and a burger chain named ‘Fat Giroud Burger’ in the French capital Paris.
It’s safe to say that the man is doing rather alright for himself despite what the haters say!