Arsenal: Loyalty might actually have let Olivier Giroud down

Olivier Giroud proved to be such a loyal, Arsenal man this summer, but might that loyalty have actually steered him in the wrong direction?

There aren’t many Arsenal players who I have more respect for than Olivier Giroud and that has always been the case. His loyalty to stick with the club when he was so vastly underappreciated is simply unheard of in this day and age.

This summer looked to be the closest he ever legitimately got to leaving and even then, you could sense that it was never going to happen. Giroud loves it here, he is on the cusp of joining the esteemed 100 goal club with his team and there was always so much fight in him to win back his playing time.

However, Giroud did note at the start of the summer that he wasn’t content to settle for the bitpart role that he had the previous season. He was going to earn more playing time and, as of yet, there doesn’t seem to be any way for him to do that.

I am thrilled that Giroud is still here, but I wonder if, for his sake, his staunch loyalty might actually have let him down. As in, would he have been better off swapping shirts and securing 2500 minutes of playing time on a club like Everton?

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The way that Arsenal are currently set up is not conducive to the big man. As we saw against Chelsea, they were most effective as a high-octane attack and for as deft as Giroud’s flick-ons and hold-up play is, he is never going to be preferred up front to Alexis Sanchez or Danny Welbeck.

Obviously Welbeck’s absence is going to help Giroud, but that will only be about a month and even if Giroud scores 10 goals in Welbeck’s absence, Arsene Wenger’s loyalty to Welbeck would give the Englishman precedence in his return. We have seen similar things happen when Aaron Ramsey was trying to hold down a starting role against Santi Cazorla.

Giroud is only going to be a side competition guy. He will get plenty of playing time in the League and FA Cup as well as the Europa League, but I don’t think that’s what he hung around for. He hung around to be a Premier League player and all signs point to that desire going unanswered this year. Even against Chelsea, Wenger opted to sub on Alexis up front before he put on Giroud.

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Giroud deserves to play. He deserves to have a fighting chance at a starting role. But the Gunners are managing to make some breakthroughs in a system that isn’t suited for a Giroud type. It just doesn’t look to be a match and Giroud is going to be the one to suffer.

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