Arsneal: Let’s Be Honest About What Olivier Giroud Actually Said

Arsenal’s permanent scapegoat Olivier Giroud took to the microphone to talk about titles and the result has Gooners in arms. But let’s take a step back.

This Arsenal season has been largely devoid of Olivier Giroud and it’s caused the constant criticism of the guy to take a back seat. You can’t criticize someone that isn’t a big part of the course of the season and Giroud simply hasn’t been.

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Despite all of that, he is still putting up goal numbers right up there with Lucas Perez. Both have superb goal production rates from limited usage.

It’s been nice having a break from constantly defending Giroud, even if those efforts have been redirected towards defending Granit Xhaka. But now, it is my time again to defend the big Frenchman from massive misrepresentation and fake news.

“In the league we are always among the top four,’ Giroud, as quoted by the Metro.

“Obviously our goal is to win titles, but this is not a determining factor in my career. I am still happy in London.”

Naturally, the headlines were a bit misdirecting. They gave the audacious claim that “Olivier Giroud doesn’t care about titles,” or he “isn’t motivated by them.”

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This is absolutely not what he was saying. Even taken out of context it’s hard to see how they drew that ridiculous claim. Giroud has been suffering from being underappreciated his entire career and to have such a harmless statement blown up into a rallying cry to oust the current regime is shameful.

Olivier Giroud is not shirking the pursuit of a title. He made that perfectly clear, saying that obviously the goal is to win titles. That little bit should put the argument right to bed. But just in case it doesn’t, the rest of the statement wasn’t about a lack of motivation, it was about his happiness in North London.

He was simply stating that even without titles, he is an Arsenal man and isn’t going to leave to pursue titles. That is what isn’t a “determining factor” – titles elsewhere.

What we have here is just another case of loyalty. Maybe you’d like to see him a bit more impassioned about the need for change or to push harder for a title, but given the bit part role he now has, it’s not really a necessity.

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Giroud is just an Arsenal man. That does’t mean that he lacks motivation or doesn’t want a title. Give the guy some damn credit.