Sally Thornton
Given his persona as Arsenal’s ‘pretty boy’ we can all imagine Olivier Giroud uttering that infamous line as he puts pen to paper on his bumper new contract: “Because I’m worth it”. However, despite Arsene’s firm belief that he is a key man for the Gunners, who are currently lagging in the football betting odds for another much-desired league title, is the Frenchman really worth £80,000-per-week? Even in this age of mind-boggling numbers, is anyone really worth that much money?
Unless you are reading this on your yacht or in your penthouse apartment in Mayfair, you are probably another hard-working Arsenal fan who has to save to go and watch his side. Now imagine that you are earning, before tax, £4.16million-a-year for potentially the next four years. That is the reality that Giroud has woken up to recently.
By Premier League standards it is not an obscene amount of money, although that line in itself opens up a whole other debate I don’t have the word count for today. With Danny Welbeck earning £115,000-per-week, Giroud is not even the highest earner at the Grove. And he has a long way to go before he can match Radamel Falcao, who is on £265k-a-week at Manchester United reportedly.
Before Arsene’s bum had even left his chair at his news conference when the extension was announced, The Metro published a ‘six amazing strikers Arsenal could sign who earn less than Giroud’ piece, eager to put the boot in it would seem. They suggest Arsenal should sign Carlos Tevez from Juventus, who earns £79k-a-week, or Gonzalo Higuain, who they claim is on £62k-a-week plus bonuses.
What the Metro has overlooked in their haste to slam Giroud is that these players would nearly all command transfer fees in excess of the £16million Arsenal paid for Welbeck, who despite constant criticism is one of the best young players in the EPL. With Arsenal in desperate need of three or four new defensive-minded players, the last thing fans should want to see is a big outlay on another striker.
In Giroud Arsenal have a striker who, despite all his faults, has a decent goal record of one goal every 2.5 games. That strike rate should probably be higher given the chances he has missed but it is still a good return for a player who cost around £9.6million when he joined from Montpellier.
The problem for Giroud is that for a long time he has been Arsenal’s main striker and has therefore been compared to the likes of Robin van Persie and Thierry Henry. The Frenchman should not be Arsenal’s No.1 striker. Rather, he should be the one who comes off the bench and bullies tired defenders in the latter stages of matches.
That is how he should be deployed once he is fully fit again, with Welbeck starting and Giroud coming on as and when he is needed.
The contract he is on might be daylight robbery to some fans but as a component of the Arsenal team Giroud works, unlike Lukas Podolski. While the German sticks out like a sore thumb, Giroud knows his role and fulfils it well. He will never be a goal-scoring machine like RVP or Henry but he can’t help that. Just like he can’t help the fact he is “gorgeous” or that his agent has hammered out an excellent deal for him.
