Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud signing among the savviest of the January window
Olivier Giroud may not be the best forward in the Premier League to change clubs this January, but Chelsea have secured an excellent player.
The list of target forwards Chelsea have been linked with this January transfer window is, frankly, baffling. Andy Carroll, Peter Crouch, Ashley Barnes. No wonder Antonio Conte seems to lose another piece of his mind with every passing week.
Reports the club were trying to sign Edin Dzeko — an excellent target forward, playing and scoring regularly for a Champions League club, and with Premier League experience to boot — suggested, accurately, as it turned out, a return to normal.
On Wednesday, the club agreed a deal to sign Olivier Giroud. This news should be cause for celebration at Stamford Bridge, which is now home to a player who is almost certainly the best second-choice forward in the Premier League, and among the best in Europe.
Giroud is often dismissed as merely the latest in a long line of 15-(but never 20)-goal-a-season strikers who have scuppered the Gunners’ title chances in the years since Robin van Persie left for Manchester United. This isn’t an inaccurate characterization.
In five full seasons at Arsenal, Giroud scored 11, 16, 14, 16 and 12 league goals. In all competitions, he broke the 20-goal barrier only twice, in 2013-14 and 2015-16, when he scored five goals in seven Champions League games in addition to his 16 in the league.
If all that sounds vaguely insulting, it shouldn’t. Giroud, it is true, didn’t drag Arsenal to the Premier League title. Then again, neither did Alexis Sanchez or Mesut Ozil or van Persie or Samir Nasri or Cesc Fabregas or any of the other exceptional players that have represented the club in the 14 years since they last lifted the trophy.
Nonetheless, Giroud is a superb player, equally capable of the sort of intricate buildup play that will get the best out of the likes of Eden Hazard, Willian and Pedro as he is at getting on the end of the crosses Cesar Azpilicueta has made a trademark this season from the right center-back position.
Conte’s starting XI is — but for the occasional, bizarre mental lapse — superb. What it lacks is elite depth, an option to turn to when Alvaro Morata is suffering through whatever overcame him during the Blues’ 2-2 draw with Arsenal at the beginning of the month.
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Michy Batshuayi has a fine goalscoring record in his limited opportunities, and Chelsea will no doubt be criticized for, as always, buying a proven quantity instead of developing a promising young talent, but whatever the philosophical pros and cons of their transfer policy writ large, Giroud improves the team from now until May. That can’t be a bad thing.
Finally, of course, there is the price, somewhere between £15 and £18 million depending on which report you read. Anywhere in that range qualifies as a bargain for a proven Premier League player that fills an area of need. (Lest we forget, Everton recently paid £20 million for Theo Walcott.)
This signing won’t register the same way Alexis Sanchez’s did at Manchester United, or Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s did at Arsenal, or, if it goes through, Riyad Mahrez’s will at Manchester City.
In fact, it is exactly the sort of understated signing of a second- or third-choice target that has left Conte so frustrated so often during his time at Stamford Bridge. Still, if Giroud’s time at Arsenal has proven anything, it’s the value of a good backup. He is among the very best.