Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud has confirmed he will “most likely” stay at Arsenal this summer but when he was asked about whether Marseille manager Rudi Garcia had been in contact, he refused to confirm or deny that he had been in touch.
In a interview with TV5 Monde, Giroud was asked to confirm that he would be staying with the Gunners despite rumours linking him with Marseille, he replied:
“That’s … Most likely. There is nothing fixed, but I would say that today, I feel good at Arsenal. I still have two years of contract. We’ll see what the future will look like …”
When the interviewer then questioned whether Garcia had called him several times about a move to Ligue One, all the French forward would say is:
“I will not talk about that.”
From that comment it does suggest that the Marseille boss has indeed been in contact, but it seems like Giroud has turned down the French side’s offer. The 30 year old only signed a new contract back in January to keep him at the club until 2019, but his lack of starts, 17 in all competitions, would have been a frustration, considering he has still managed to scored 16 goals for the Gunners this season.
Giroud is somewhat of a strange case at Arsenal, as many fans have a soft spot for the Frenchman and his scoring rate is pretty good despite rarely having a long run of starts in the team. He’s played over 200 times for the Gunners, scoring nearly 100 goals and achieving a strike rate of 0.44 goals per game – close to the magical one in two mark.
In his five seasons at Arsenal, Giroud has never failed to reach double figures in the Premier League goal scoring charts, and before this season had tallies of 16, 14 and 16 in the three years previously. Those kind of numbers are not be sniffed at, yet the Frenchman still doesn’t get the credit he deserves to a large extent.
This is without even taking into account Giroud’s international record, with the striker having scored 23 goals in 61 appearances for France, with the latest coming in March of this year in the 3-1 win over Luxembourg in qualification for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
So, it remains to be see how much playing time, if any, that Giroud will get at the Emirates Stadium next season and whether he should be a consideration in your daily accas. Either way, whether he leaves or stays, it’s likely that Giroud will continue to be under-appreciated by the average football fan.
