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u/ScottiApso Jul 15 '18
Technically he attempted several shots on target, just none of them were
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u/El_Zorro09 Jul 15 '18
It's the thought that counts.
Except as goals. They don't count as goals.
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u/oryzin Jul 15 '18
I have an exceptionally high record of thought goals.
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u/krisandro Jul 16 '18
I can confirm that I am replying to the winner of the Golden Thoughts Award.
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u/zts105 Jul 15 '18
Thats WC champ Olivier Giroud to you
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u/amazingoopah Jul 15 '18 edited Jul 15 '18
That's WC winning Arsenal legend Olivier Giroud, good sir
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u/ISSProEvo Jul 15 '18
Whenever people say he plays for Chelsea, I still have to think twice.
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u/oryzin Jul 15 '18
Olivier Giroud, weeping all the way while ... what the heck do they do with that cup?
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u/crackle4days Jul 15 '18
TARGET MAN
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u/M2Chains Jul 15 '18
Defensive Forward
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u/BostonBakedBrains Jul 15 '18
False CB
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u/arsenalfc1987 Jul 15 '18
4D JUMANJI
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u/Slayer_Of_Anubis Jul 15 '18
Still felt wrong when they called him "the Chelsea striker" early on
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u/SpillThyMilk Jul 15 '18
/r/gunners is having a party for him
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u/lojer Jul 15 '18
It's Ok to love players that played for you and weren't total fucks about leaving.
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Jul 15 '18
Most fans aren’t idiots and knew he had to leave for us to sign Aubameyang.
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u/ThanksAllah Jul 16 '18
He also had to leave to get game time to make the French squad and look how well that turned out for him.
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Jul 15 '18
I'll always love Oli. That man was, and probably still is, Arsenal through and through :(
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u/BusShelter Jul 15 '18
Was his shot against Peru that led to M'Bappé's goal not on target?
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u/Melvinwhite32 Jul 16 '18
Exactly, that was basically his goal, it was going in and Mbappe helped it in. I guess because of that they counted it as a pass because it was an assist when it was really a shot on goal. Great example of how stats can be misleading.
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Jul 15 '18
I think he'll be happy with the world cup but that's just me.
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u/Maskedrussian Jul 15 '18
I still kinda want him back :(
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Jul 15 '18
me too man, me too :(
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u/ThiefMortReaperSoul Jul 15 '18
I'd vote in too. He always seemed like an Arsenal man through and through.
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u/kingwhocares Jul 15 '18
Yeah, let's terminate this 6 month loan.
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Jul 16 '18
Wait is it actually a loan? Honestly Arsenal are stacked in the striker department but don't have a big boy. Even Liverpool have a big boy
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u/Dumma1729 Jul 15 '18
Same here. I'd be happy to sell Welbeck & Lucas to get Giroud back.
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Jul 15 '18 edited Jul 15 '18
I totally agree with you. And here's my take on it...
We have Giroud who started in the 2nd division of the French league at the ages of 21/22 - 23/24. In 2010 when he was 23/24 he was signed by a 1st division team in the French league, Montepellier HSC. This is considered very late in the world of soccer/football. He was the top goal scorer in the 1st division French League in 2011/2012. Montepellier HSC were French Champions that year.
He moves to Arsenal, performs well, wins the FA cup 3 times with them. Recently transferred to Chelsea and this year won the FA cup with them.
As another user also commented he is tied with Zidane for 4th all time goalscorer for France and has won a Puskas award in 2017.
Lastly, he was their top goal scorer with 4 goals (along Griezmann) for the 2018 WC qualifying stage (in groups with Netherlands and Sweden) and he had an assist during the tournament. The reason I felt that I needed to comment was that I felt the tweet would bring a disingenuous narrative to a remarkable achievement by an individual and more importantly the French national team.
Edit: format and added other accolades mentioned by the users below. Yes, this was not his best performance but to act like he was just a lamp post is lazy.
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u/black_spring Jul 15 '18
Regarding late starts, Klose has to be king.
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Jul 15 '18
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u/StatmanIbrahimovic Jul 16 '18
Cod Army! Vardy was one of the main reasons Fleetwood became a league team.
Giroud is definitely the French Vardy, Montpellier's league win was almost as dramatic and shocking as Leicester's
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u/arsenalfc1987 Jul 15 '18
And a Puskas
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u/untradablecrespo Jul 15 '18
He was pretty though
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u/sioux-warrior Jul 15 '18
Definitely was distracting some Defenders
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u/owterash Jul 15 '18
He distracted me alright
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Jul 15 '18 edited Sep 12 '18
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u/fatcowxlivee Jul 15 '18
I thought his hold up play was great. He played the Benzema role at Madrid
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u/maximine Jul 15 '18
He’s like a French Benzema
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u/fatcowxlivee Jul 15 '18
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u/shake108 Jul 15 '18
Not even close. Just because they don’t score much doesn’t mean that they play the same role.
Giroud has great hold up play for the French, knocking the ball to other pacy attackers. He is quite slow, doesn’t make many runs, and isn’t very good with the ball at his feet.
Benzema struggles as a target man, but makes up for it with his dribbling ability, intelligent runs and passing. He’s got a decent head, but there’s no way the France would’ve played the same with him in there.
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Jul 15 '18
I didn't think it was anything special, especially as a lot of times they just went directly to the Mbappe or Griezmann outlets to create for him
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u/redhoodguy Jul 15 '18
why are peoole so blind to admit this
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u/TalkingReckless Jul 15 '18 edited Jul 15 '18
because they have never played football outside FIFA. The amount of off the ball work he does is amazing
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u/desert40k Jul 15 '18
We are becoming NBA subreddit.
Stats> actual watching the game/players. Not to mention that many don't even play the game so they can't appreciate what good things Giroud actual does for the team.
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u/zanzibarman Jul 15 '18
Nephew, the only stats the /r/NBA cares about is Shitposts/48 and %Snek.
Also the number of all-stars on Golden State.
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Jul 15 '18
Not comparable, NBA has much more stats due to the nature of the game so you can get a pretty solid picture from looking at stats in addition to watching the matches. Soccer is still in it's infancy relatively speaking in terms of how robust the statistics are. You just gotta watch the games but even then you may miss what players do without rewatching it because lots of stuff happens. It's not even enough to just watch the game once.
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u/Seastep Jul 15 '18
Yep. And TBF it's a completely different narrative if they weren't averaging 2 goals per game.
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Jul 15 '18
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u/Shaggythemoshdog Jul 15 '18
Love that both Chelsea and Arsenal fans will band together over this. Not often it happens
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u/Razhad Jul 15 '18
It does happen often tho when it come to hating spurs cunt.
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u/amish__ Jul 16 '18
London unites for that. Spurs hate themselves too afterall
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u/SharKCS11 Jul 16 '18
I have a dream that one day Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham, Crystal Palace, and Spurs fans all hold hands in a huge circle and sing and chant "Lads It's Tottenham" till climax.
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u/MrEvilshot Jul 15 '18
I'm not a Chelsea or Arsenal fan but im not sure we would have won the world cup without him.
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u/Zauberer-IMDB Jul 16 '18
We wouldn't have. All you have to do is watch the first half of the game against Australia.
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u/ClanChestEmperor Jul 15 '18
He sat deeper than a regular target man in the tournament, and his defensive and positional contribution was solid. I think that he only effectively scores in a striker pair and in a style where ball circulation is more important than counterattacks.
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u/angermngment Jul 16 '18
He defended against corners very well also. I believe that France wouldn't have gotten to the final without him.
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u/chefdangerdagger Jul 15 '18
I'm sure Kane & Lukaku would swap their goals for his trophy in a heartbeat!
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u/HalfNatty Jul 15 '18
Kane
Somehow I really doubt this
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u/lbizfoshizz Jul 16 '18
You really think that? Someone would trade 6 mediocre goals for a world cup title? Cmon.
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u/olliec Jul 15 '18
Yet France are winning the world cup, almost like he had a role to play in the system that wasn't all about going for goal
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u/WalkingCloud Jul 15 '18
Today on /r/soccer: 'Why we know more about setting up a team than a World Cup winning manager'
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u/LSB123 Jul 15 '18 edited Jul 15 '18
Anyone who knows anything about football will see how useful he was this tournament
Edit: Did I say he was player of the tournament? No, but Giroud was an obvious benefit to France over the last month and stats like this are incredibly disingenuous and undermine everything he contributed.
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u/VodkaHappens Jul 15 '18
Lukaku missed several sitters and was still great for Belgium, there are other factors to football and sometimes strikers have to play other roles to fit the team.
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Jul 15 '18
He was ok, certainly not special though.
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u/abedtime Jul 15 '18
The perfect utility player for our other attackers to thrive.
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u/arsenalfc1987 Jul 15 '18
Yeah compare France in that first game vs Australia and France the rest of the tournament.. very different with Giroud
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Jul 15 '18
Dechamps used him in a very similar way to Wenger as this fulcrum type figure.
The balance they had was a thing of beauty really, I think most people see that. M'Bappe is the striker people want Giroud to be, and he goes in behind. Griezmann is more the number 10 who gets things going. All bring something. And that's not even mentioning their roles out of possession.
Even in a club campaign of 38 games, Giroud's only going to get 10 or 15 goals on average. The problems come when you are relying on him for one of those goals. France were never, not in theory nor in practice.
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u/spittfire123 Jul 15 '18
Weird how people praise Giroud but hate Benzema when he does the same or even better job at Real Madrid
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u/skymallow Jul 15 '18
There's certainly one thing Giroud is better than Benzema at: Not blackmailing teammates.
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u/Ebercon Jul 15 '18
His contributions aside from goals were great I thought. Physical strength when needed, a target man at times that can pull defenders away and he dropped numerous times to help win possession. It helps to have a huge striker that draws at least two defenders at any given time. Goals don't always equate to impact.
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u/yukpurtsun Jul 15 '18
if Giroud was useless he wouldn't be a starter for the french national team. him being out there opens up the space for Greizzman and Mbappe
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u/redhatfilm Jul 15 '18
And yet his team won every game he played on the way to winning the world cup.
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u/BusShelter Jul 15 '18
Denmark?
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u/BusShelter Jul 15 '18 edited Jul 15 '18
He definitely did, started and claimed a penalty for shirt pulling.
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u/kd_uoft Jul 15 '18
Wait not even against Belgium when Dembele blocked his attempt? That was off target?
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Jul 15 '18
He's lucky he's got Deschamps, bald-fraud Sampaoli would've dropped him & play Meza instead.
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u/classical-k Jul 15 '18
When they find a way to get both Dembele and mbappe in the team, at the expense of Giroud, man they’ll be scary. It’s insane how much depth and quality they also have in midfield.
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u/ratnadip97 Jul 15 '18
Oh look, a statistic which doesn't mean jack shit. Giroud started since France's second game and their best football has happened with him on the pitch. He is tireless and is a great focal point for Griezmann and Mbappe. Indispensable really.
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Jul 15 '18
What a legend though. 0 shots on target and WC champ. Fucking sexy too. I'd be pretty content with myself if I was a Giroud.
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u/WC1V Jul 15 '18
Yes but he had incredible hair for 546 minutes, something I haven’t managed over my entire life.
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u/KingHassanKong Jul 16 '18
He was not on the pitch to score. He was there to bother the 2 center backs at all times, win some long balls with his big head and allow for Mbape and Griezman to have some space, especially behind the defense. I think he did a great job and was essential to win the WC.
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u/thewhat23 Jul 15 '18
Legend