Olivier Giroud scored two more goals for France last night in their win over Gibraltar which makes it nine for the season for club and country, but AC Milan cannot rest easy despite his scoring run.
As MilanNews writes, it is not so much that Giroud is a problem for Milan or that he is too old – because he appears to be ageing like Benjamin Button, as Zlatan Ibrahimovic would say – but rather that the team rely too much on him and only him for goals from the striker position.
Giroud is like wine: the older he gets, the more he improves. However, Stefano Pioli will not have the French striker available for the next two league matches against Fiorentina and Frosinone after he got sent off for arguing with the referee, showing that some people perhaps don’t mellow with age.
At 37 years old, he cannot have the same physical continuity and energy reserves as someone 15 years younger and for this reason, the Rossoneri management are looking for various profiles for the future.
Among them are Serhou Guirassy of Stuttgart, Jonathan David of Lille and Akor Adams from Montpellier. Regarding the latter, Milan’s eyes also focused on certain technical characteristics which make him perhaps an ideal centre-forward, in addition to his goals of course.
However, we must not forget that Luka Jovic and Noah Okafor are also currently in the squad, who will have an important role in the next two league games. They have different characteristics and occupy the area in different ways.
Okafor has perhaps more technical quality, movement and dynamism, while Jovic is more known for having physical presence in the area and build-up play to bring in the runs of the wingers and the midfielders.
Unless Rafa Leao recovers from injury, the two attackers will be protagonists both from the first minute and from the bench. It will then be up to Pioli to understand who will help the cause the most.
This position should have been resolved this past summer but management decided to go the cheap route and not invest when multiple opportunities existed. Now we are left reaching for players in the January window where opportunities and quality are very few. 40M for David? Ya right for 2 goals?? LOL. ALL of these players we are linked to in January are ONE YEAR wonders and have NOT yet shown over MULTIPLE seasons that they can CONSISTENTLY score. We should NOT be gambling on players that MAY contribute or develop or adapt to Serie A – we need ESTABLISHED PLAYERS that can help us win NOW so we can qualify for UCL. Management already gambled I’m the summer by not getting a striker and it hurt us. Now they want to GAMBLE again on players that MAY or MAY NOT contribute???? Terrible Georgio. Wake up. We are not Lecce we are AC Milan and should be after ready-made players and should not always have to gamble for discounted players
Rather than Jonathan David, better to keep belief to Colombo…
If we really wanted to buy star striker then buy someone like Sesko or Gimenez ffs
I wonder whether Giroud’s overall contribution would be tolerated if he was Pippo Inzaghi. That is, whether these puff pieces would be written if his contributions were boiled down to nothing more than his finishing.
I’m pretty sure it would not.
It is my firmly held belief that, due to his size, pundits, fans and even professionals cannot see Giroud for what he now is.
Harsh as it may seem, the reality is that he is a void in our system which is hindering our ability to maintain possession in attacking areas, general build up play and ball progression.
Finishing is really only half of the role of the centre forward. Isn’t that the point of XG, to show ‘this is what a competent striker should score based on what the system he is playing in produces’? It makes no sense to me that we then laud a striker for being that cog in the machine, just performing the role.
There have been suggestions for a long time now that we need an alternative to Giroud, a different type of player. This appears to have distracted our focus, from the desperate need for a proper #9 target man, to players who are also poachers or fundamentally second strikers, players who need a physical target man and distributor next to them.
I’d want to hope that a Serie B level striker scores heavily for France in a 14-0 rout of Gibraltar. S**t, I’d expect Tommaso Mancini or Camarda to score 2 or 3 times as the tip of the French spear and they share about 90 minutes of senior appearances (at Serie C level) between them.
Other than to allude us wanting Sesko, along with every other side in Europe, I see no solution to the #9 problem being discussed who is not 17 years old of younger. It is very disturbing, particularly given that they money that will be spent on David, for example, will certainly result in us being unable to pursue Sesko.
You’re only talking about goals and assists, though. Giroud brings a lot more than that which makes him so hard to replace.
Take Leao, for example. He can judged based on goals and assists because he does not put much effort in defensively, he is not a motivational or inspirational, and his preference to avoid physical contact causes the opponents to feel empowered to get physical with him (as opposed to someone like Giroud or Ibra who will return the favor).
Players like Giroud, Ibra, Kjaer, Bennacer and… Tonali… are worth so much more than stats. Giroud is every bit as important as fans and media think he is.
It’s the opposite, I’m talking about all the other parts of his game which are non-existent.
Giroud offers virtually nothing defensively (I am aware of the claims about his pressing that I believe to be wildly overstated) and has no hold-up / build-up whether on the ground or in the air.
Giroud may be a great person to have around the club. An experienced leader and calm head. He could be that as the second or third choice striker.
He shouldn’t be our first choice striker but he is the best we have right now. The others need to step up. While he is no Ibra, his hold-up/build-up play is above average. I’d be more critical of the midfield void where we struggle to keep possession and create chances. With service, Giroud has always delivered. As for defensive effort, I have to disagree. He tracks back a lot when he needs to. Best examples are the CL games against Tottenham and Napoli, he recovered more balls in our half than I could count.
“Rather than Jonathan David, better to keep belief to Colombo…
If we really wanted to buy star striker then buy someone like Sesko or Gimenez ffs”
Eeeeeeeeeeeexactly!!!! At least with Colombo there would be 40M€ for other gaps to fill and he’s the only one who has scored consistently in Serie A (unlike the rumored targets who all have zero goals in Italy).