Chelsea‘s past few games have not been a fairy tale affair. After their 3-1 win against Leeds United on the 6th of December, they won just one game in 6 matches.
Timo Werner has been misfiring lately and Tammy Abraham has not been consistent. But as fine as old wine, Olivier Giroud never fails to show his class for Chelsea. He is always there when Chelsea needs him and puts the goal in the back of the net no matter how he receives it.
Yesterday, against Aston Villa he scored the opener before El Ghazi equalized for the visitors. Even at 34, there seems to nothing stopping this machine.
Giroud to the Rescue for Chelsea:
During his days at Arsenal, Giroud was a brilliant player. Along with Alexis Sanchez and Mezut Ozil, Arsenal were a team that could rip apart any defence. Ozil with the creativity, Sanchez with technical ability, and Giroud with his immense work rate.
He won the FIFA Puskás Award in 2017 for his incredible scorpion kick against Crystal Palace. Giroud moved to Chelsea in January 2018.
Chelsea already had a star-studded attack with the likes of Alvaro Morata and Eden Hazard. Thus, game-time was always an issue even though he impressed whenever he came on.
Chelsea were under Antonio Conte when they signed Giroud. Maurizio Sarri became the manager in the summer of 2018 and a year later Frank Lampard became the manager.
In this time period, Giroud won the FIFA World Cup in Russia with France. He was an integral member of the team, highly praised for his work-rate. Even though Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé stole the show, they credited Giroud for his brilliant link-up play and movement.
It seemed to be all over for Giroud last season due to the emergence of Tammy Abraham. The youngster was racking up hattricks in his initial games and the veteran striker was left to warm the bench.
However as the season progressed, Tammy had lesser influence in the games and Lampard turned to the Frenchman as the season was drawing a conclusion. He went on to score 6 goals for Chelsea after the restart helping them secure Champions’ league spots for the following season.
In the transfer window that followed Lampard spent over €200 million to improve his squad. He signed Timo Werner, Kai Havertz, and Hakim Ziyech to bolster Chelsea’s attack. Though each one of them showed promise, none have impacted as expected.
Injuries and the COVID meant that they could not deliver when needed the most. Once again it was Olivier Giroud who proved that he was always going to be a threat in front of the goal.
His current form:
Against Sevilla in the Champions’ League, he scored 4 goals, making him the oldest player to score a hattrick in the tournament’s history. Lampard was heavily criticized for benching Giroud after Chelsea’s 1-3 loss to Arsenal.
He has scored 9 times for Chelsea in 15 appearances this season. 5 of them have come in the Champions’ League.
The striker is looking to move in the January transfer window. He has been linked to Inter Milan ever since Conte set foot on San Siro. The big question is, ‘Will Chelsea regret selling one of their main strikers?’
If I had to describe Giroud’s presence in Chelsea right now, it would be in one sentence. Cometh the Moment, Cometh the Man.
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