Arsenal: Olivier Giroud Inveitably Passing Sylvain Wiltord Will Get Ignored

Arsenal will watch on as Olivier Giroud inevitably passes Sylvain Wiltord to international honors, but chances are, even this won’t sway the masses.

Olivier Giroud scored two goals against Luxembourg to land himself into sole possession of the tenth spot on France’s all time top scorers list. It is a huge honor for the Arsenal man and, given how he is actually still improving, he won’t be stopping with his 23 international goals.

Next up on that list, at No. 9, is the renowned Sylvain Wiltord, who ranked in at 33rd on Arsenal.com’s top 50 Gunners of all time list.

Wiltord scored 26 goals in 92 appearances with the France national team to go along with the 32 league goals in 108 that he scored for Arsenal.

Meanwhile, Giroud hit 23 goals in just 60 appearances for France and, as of writing, has 65 in 154 for the Gunners in the Premier League.

Yet again we see the merit that Olivier Giroud has as a striker, and as a goal scorer in general. When Giroud’s goal scoring ability was put to question, it was easy to look at the things he did that they didn’t have stats for – his ability to hold up play, create space, flick-on – the talents were there. But it was unfortunate that those skills had to be used to justify his supposed lack of goals.

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Now that the stats and the company is there (and it always has been, really) I wonder what excuses will come up next.

Giroud is going to pass Wiltord on the France all time scoring list and it isn’t going to take him 32 more appearances to do it (Giroud probably won’t have 32 more appearances). When that time comes, he will, yet again, prove that he belongs in the upper echelon of French strikes, and of Gunner strikers.

But inevitably it will be glossed over by the haters out there that think that Giroud doesn’t do enough other things, despite the easily provable fact that he does.

The big Frenchman will feature in France’s 2018 World Cup side, barring any unforeseen interruptions, and he could end up with 30 international goals and he will without a doubt reach the Arsenal 100 goal club.

That means that he could finish his career in the top five all-time French goal scorers (depending on Karim Benzema), right alongside Just Fontaine and Jean-Pierre Papin.

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And he will be in exclusive company with Arsenal as well. If, for whatever reason, you still doubt the credentials of this man, what can you say when he is in this esteemed company? Better yet, what can be said when he has surpassed that esteemed company?

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