Arsenal now have fulfilment of everything Olivier Giroud restricted

Arsenal are set to sign Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in a club-record £55.5 million move. Arsene Wenger now has the fulfilment of everything that Olivier Giroud restricted: movement.

Olivier Giroud was always a dutiful and faithful striker. He scored semi-regularly, averaging 13.8 goals per Premier League campaign before this current season, worked hard for the team, rarely sulking when things did not quite go his way, and showed great character and perseverance during times of great criticism and near abuse. But there was an issue. He restricted the Arsenal attack, and Arsene Wenger knew it.

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In the 2016/17 campaign, after returning late in the summer with Wenger wanting to provide him with some rest after the European Championships, where he played six games for the French national side, racking up just short of 500 extra football minutes, Giroud found his place in the starting XI in jeopardy: Alexis Sanchez, a presumed winger, was starting in his lone central role. There was only room on the bench.

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The reason was simple. Wenger wanted an attack that centred on interchangeable, fluid movement between the front three. And so, he set about building his team, with Mesut Ozil, Sanchez and Theo Walcott, three either extremely quick, intelligent or both players. They played at pace, darting in between the defensive ranks of the opposition, shifting the ball from side to side before waiting for the moment to pounce with a series of quick-strike passes. Giroud, naturally, did not fit this style.

Even when Sanchez was shifted back to the left flank late in the year, it was often Danny Welbeck, and not Giroud, who started in the central striking role. Take the FA Cup final as an example. It was the increased mobility and athleticism of Welbeck that freed Arsenal to press Chelsea high up the pitch and play at a tempo that dismantled their usually regimented and disciplined shape.

This obsession with movement in the final third is also what led Wenger to break the club transfer record not once, but soon-to-be twice. The first came in the summer: £47 million lavishly splashed on Alexandre Lacazette, a sharp, explosive centre-forward who founded his game on the allied threat of anticipation and quickness. And now, just six months later, with Walcott and Sanchez now out of the equation, Wenger has seemingly found the man to complete his strikeforce. £55 million says that he has.

That is the fee that Arsenal will pay Borussia Dortmund if the impending transfer of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is completed. There are still a few moving parts to be slotted into place, including the possible departure of Olivier Giroud with Chelsea sniffing. But recent developments suggest that this is a transfer that should be signed, sealed and indeed delivered by the Wednesday night deadline.

And if there is any player in world football that represents Wenger’s searing philosophy, then it is renowned burner Aubameyang. The first thing you notice when watching him play is his speed. He is just flat-out quick. There is no other way about it. But he is not just the athletic striker that is overly reliant on his physical gifts, he also possesses the game understanding, the spatial awareness, the innate sense of danger, the positional nous, that every top-class centre-forward must have if they are to score at such a relentless rate over such an extended period.

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Giroud, if he leaves, will be missed. He is a faithful and diligent servant, and he deserves respect for his five-and-a-half years at the club. But Aubameyang is his natural and improving successor. Aubameyang is the mould that Wenger was always striving for. Aubameyang is the climax of those endeavours. Aubameyang is the fulfilment of Giroud’s restrictions. The stage is most certainly set.

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