Arsenal‘s 2-1 win at QPR saw them notch their 7th win in 8 league games, thus propelling an already strong case for a third place finish. What has been a key feature to the Gunners’ resurgence since the defeat at the hands of Southampton on New Year’s Day is the growth of Olivier Giroud as the nucleus of Arsenal’s attack. If the Arsenal attack fulcrum’d on Alexis Sanchez till the first week of January, Olivier Giroud has gladly accepted the baton since. Olivier Giroud racked up his Arsenal half-century last weekend and continued his goal scoring exploits on Wednesday night and it did catch the eye, statistically speaking.
@WhoScored: Olivier Giroud: Has now scored or assisted 10 of Arsenal’s last 20 goals in all competitions #afca #Underrated
A good enough statistic to gauge Giroud’s importance to the Gunners. Thus it comes as no surprise that Arsenal’s worst performance since the Southampton defeat, the 3-1 puncturing at the hands of Monaco, coincided with Giroud’s worst performance of the season. Giroud was of course unavailable for the defeat at St Mary’s and now that dreadful night vs Monaco can be seen as a statistical outlier in what has been a hugely successful 2015 for the Frenchman.
The numbers further escalate his stature as one of the league’s top tier forwards underlining the vast improvement and bludgeoning confidence of a player in his prime. 10 goals in 1072 minutes of league football, means Giroud has almost halved his minutes per goal ratio from last season’s 192.7 to a 107.2 minutes per strike this term. Only Diego Costa(104), Sergio Aguero (96.5) and Pappiss Cisse(92.4) can boast of better numbers than the Arsenal striker. Even in terms of conversion rate there has been a noticeable leap. Last season the former Montpellier man, had a conversion rate of 14%, that is just more than 1 goal per 10 shots. This season Giroud boasts a conversion rate of 22.1%, scoring 10 times from his 46 shots, a much improved number and one that stands third tallest in the league behind Pappiss Cisse(27.5%) and Diego Costa(26.1%). But how much do these stats actually reveal?
There should be no doubts over Giroud being much more prolific this season as compared to his previous two in North London, but it has to be noted that he had very impressive numbers for the first 2 months of last season as well with half a dozen goals and a conversion rate bordering 25%. But as the season started heading into the business end, the Frenchman looked like a shadow of himself. This is exactly why Giroud’s numbers or even Cisse’s(who tops both the charts) both of who have played less than 1100 minutes out of a maximum 2520 minutes played in the Premier League could be seen as a little flattering. Lesser minutes mean lesser burnout and more freshness for the players and thus causes a bias in the stats. Alexis Sanchez who had scored for fun till January 11, found the net on Wednesday night for the first time since, is your case in point.
Long seen as a small-team bully, Giroud has atleast set that record straight this season. Goals against Everton, home and away, the crucial goal to seal the win at the Etihad coupled with the fine strike against Manchester United and the opener vs Liverpool, Arsenal now have a go to man in the big games perhaps. Among all numbers however what caught the eye was the significant drop in the assists chart. Only 2 compared to last season’s 9 suggest a more responsible and less fancy Giroud near the box and that hasn’t gone unnoticed to the regular fan. Arsenal’s grandest criticisms have always been on the lines of trying to be too pretty most of the time and Giroud was a major culprit. This season however, the 28 year old looks more assured of himself in and around the box with a greater hunger for goals, thereby changing his back-to-goal-striker profile into a more complete package. There is no comparing Giroud to Diego Costa or Sergio Aguero, both of who are clearly a rung above the Arsenal man. But with regular goals and an improvement curve rocketing upwards, Giroud much like Arsenal, has a strong claim for the third spot in the league.