GIROUD is better than Diego Costa. Here are the figures.

Posted on by WalterBroeckx

By Walter Broeckx

I have seen a snide remark on Untold this weekend before the Newcastle match from a person who said that we should stop embarrassing ourselves by comparing Giroud with Thierry Henry. And maybe he was right. Maybe we should stop doing that. Because it might put a too big pressure on Giroud to live up with the one and only Thierry Henry.

There was only one TH and Giroud is no TH, will never be one just because he is a completely different type of player. Giroud is not that fast speedy gonzalez that TH was in his best days. Giroud is the big striker who can use his body in order to put some weight and pressure on the defenders of the other team.

If you ask most people who the best striker is in the PL this season and the name of Diego Costa will come up more than once. He is the leading top scorer at the moment I write this.

So in order to compare Giroud with anyone….why not compare him with Diego Costa? Hell yeah, why not. Just do it, and so I did. Data is from websites that hold those statistics so I hope they are accurate as I take their data as correct.

Diego Costa in all competitions:

Competition Starts Subs Minutes Goals Assists
PL 22 1873 18 2
FA CUP 1 0 0
LEAGUE CUP 3 1 0
CL 5 2 508 0 1
TOTAL 31 2 2381 19 3
Average Goals  
Goals every
 125 Minutes
Goal contribution 108 Minutes

Olivier Giroud in all competitions:

Competition Starts Subs Minutes Goals Assists
PL 14 5 1255 13 3
FA CUP 2 1 2 0
LEAGUE CUP 0 0 0
CL 2 150 1 01
TOTAL 19 7 1405 16 3
Average Goals  
Goals every
 88 Minutes
Goal contribution 74 Minutes

So the cold numbers are that it takes super striker Diego Costa 125 minutes to score a goal and “second string striker” Giroud only 87 minutes. Yes that is on average a goal every match when Giroud can start and finish a match. Not bad for a striker for which some of our own supporters  go completely overboard when he misses a few chances.  What about you Claude?

These numbers mean that Diego Costa needs 37 more minutes to score a goal than Giroud. Let that sink in for a minute. That is almost an entire half of a football match.

And if we add the assists in the mix we see that Diego Costa has a goal contribution every 108 minutes. And Giroud is involved in a goal by either scoring himself of giving an assist every 74 minutes. That is a difference of 34 minutes or Costa needing more than half an hour to do what Giroud did in 74 minutes.

Not bad for a ‘not that good striker’ as some refer to him.

In fact how much did the three months we had to play without him (when his leg was broken at the start of the season) have a negative impact on our league position? Just imagine having him around the whole season!

Now I must admit there is one player who has a slightly better record. Harry Kane has a goal every 84 minutes so far this season. BUT… in his goals there are two penalties and if we exclude them as Giroud doesn’t take penalties the time Kane needs to score an outfield goal goes up to 91 minutes. And the total goal contribution of Kane including penalties and assists is a goal contribution every 76 minutes and the goal contribution from Giroud as can be seen in the table is 74 minutes.

So I’m not saying Giroud is as good as Thierry Henry or ever will be (not that I wouldn’t wish Giroud to break all the TH records apart from running fast).

But what I am saying is that Giroud is a damn good striker to have around. A striker that has a better statistic record than Costa and even Kane. Only his injury has prevented him from being at the same total level as they are.

I think if we had had a fully fit Giroud all season we would be very, very close to Chelsea. And even not mentioning a full fit Özil.

So for all those Giroud haters I would say give the boy a rest when he misses a chance next time. Why don’t you do what the home support did when after the Monaco match he missed his first chance and the crowd started singing his name. And the rewarded with a goal a bit later.

Get off his back and just start supporting him because he sure gives us not only goals but his work in the build up to goals is also vastly underrated, his holding up play is great and let us not forget his defensive contribution when defending free kicks and corners is also very important and valuable.

No,  Giroud is no Henry. But he sure can put his foot next to those strikers who make the headlines in the PL and I got a feeling there is more to come from him this season.

Anniversaries – the good and the bad…

22 March 1986: With the club having failed to win any of its last eight games Don Howe resigned as manager 10 years to the day after Bertie Mee.  Steve Burtenshaw took over but the run continued to ten games, during which Arsenal scored just one goal.

22 March 2005: The start of Lehmann’s record of 853 minutes without conceding a goal in the Champions League.

Follow us on Twitter @UntoldArsenal

Recent Posts

53 Replies to “GIROUD is better than Diego Costa. Here are the figures.”

  1. Here’s a nice one from the Observer today

    Wenger [has] kept on confounding those doubters who, until very recently, claimed he had overstayed his welcome in north London. How wrong can you be?

  2. On Giroud he is a very good striker probably the very best of his kind.
    I have started to wonder why some fans think he is not good enough to play for Arsenal is it pace.
    Maybe it he was bought cheap from French football or he was a Wenger purchase and we all know that Wenger knows nothing about buying players according to the aaa and the media.

  4. People hate Giroud because it only cost £13m yet, stats are talking to themselves. He is a great striker, not the best, surely, yet he does the job for Arsenal and those stats above say it all.
    Most people even say wrong things such as Giroud is not there in big games, yet this season, he scored against City, Pool, ManU and Spurs, he also score against Monaco and because he had 1…. and only 1 bad game this season, many are on his back, many Arsenal fans don’t know nothing about football, they are young fans who only think that because you cost £35m you are better than £13m striker. Even on my own Facebook page, I compared Giroud this season with Aguero, Costa and Kane and stats say: he’s not better yet he is not worse either and with 9 games remaning, he can prove that he place in BPL top 5 strikers worth every penny he cost to Arsenal.

  5. Lets stop this comparison, because every one is different. Its like comparing Maradona with Pele. Both were amazing but different at the same time. I just love OG because what ability he has. Thats for such a big striker his 1st touch is simply unbelievable, this I love to watch and want the kids to do as well. the things he can do I am sure TH cannot and the other way as well. Lets just enjoy his game, his goals, his style. I think its unfair.

  6. I pray for a draw btn manU and Liverpool today, then we beat L’pool in two weeks time, just to make sure that when they play Chelski, they can give it their all.

  7. Nice comparism….OG12 is the best striker presently in the epl…outshining the Aguero’s and Costa’s…since he returned from his injury lay off..he has been scoring for fun……so much underated by our fan base and at times i dont blame them…He is no TH14 and if u look at the strikers that have played for us before him u would probably rate most of them higher than OG12 but that does not mean he is not good enof…he is as good as they come…he is just a different type of striker to what Arsenal fans are used to.

  8. As the saying goes: look at the numbers.

    Thanks Walter.

    I would back our squad, if fully fit, against any other fully fit squad in England over the course of the season. Without an international tournament in the summer, things are looking very exciting for next season.

  9. People don’t like Giroud because Arsenal bought him.
    Sneaky so and so’s, Arsenal once again bought a player who’d shown himself to develop well. Never mind that he significantly helped a small team to win the French title.
    Besides Olivier being under the so called experts radars, he also had the temerity to not cost £50M.

    Loving the title “Arsenal HATE TV”. Entirely correct. This is the bunch who play right up to media haters. Ultimately it’s about the continued attempted destabilisation of the club and its fans. AFTV also gave a very long intvw to Piss Morgan – filled with bile. Nothing is ever good enough for them.

    AFTV, the epitome of negativity.

    Olivier Giroud, thank you for coming to Arsenal FC.
    I appreciate your superb efforts on behalf of this wonderful club. Your progress is massive. Your desire, intense. Keep on keeping on.

  10. I hadn’t realised that comparisons with OG & others were going on (other than here), but that there was in fact a general appreciation of him as a top class striker in form.
    The first Monaco game was an anomaly (a bit like Bendtner v Burnley 2010) and he’s now racking up the goals as if he looking to expunge the missing months through injury from this season’s stats.
    This article is really just unessessary filler and is not at all helpful.

  11. Gouresh.

    The comparisons may or may not be fair, but the reason people keep making them is to counter the people, AAA’s and many in the Media, that consistently try to claim OG is not good enough for AFC, or according to some, no good full stop.

    The Comparison, to perhaps our greatest ever striker, TH14, is used because statistically he compares very favourably.

    The point being made is how can you be ‘not good enough for Arsenal’ when your goals per game and assists per game so closely matches one of the best strikers of all time.

    I agree the comparisons can only be made with the statistics as the players are poles apart as regards to style.

    As we all know, TH14 was all about pace, either picking the ball up deep and running at defences or getting behind the defence with a blistering burst, where as OG is all about strength, positioning in the box, holding the ball up.

    But both offer something the other doesn’t.

    To me the main advantage TH14 has over OG is that with his pace and skill he could make a goal out of nothing all on his own. The team could be playing very average but often as not Henry would produce a moment of magic and score a goal. I don’t think Giroud has that in his locker. He needs the team to be playing well. Creating chances. Yes he will take them at a good ratio, but he is very reliant on ‘service’.

    Where I think Giroud comes out over Henry is when we are under the cosh. Giroud offers much more at the back with his height and power, when teams are lobbing corners, free kicks, and throw ins into the box. Also he is great at holding the ball up when the back 4 need a bit of respite. I don’t think TH14 offered anything like as much defensively as Giroud does.

    So 2 fantastic players that can score goals and give assists at a very similar ratio.

    The point is those little extras and what you think is more important.

    -Is it the moment of magic that scores a goal?

    -Is the help provided when under pressure?

  13. OG does a great job for us, these stats prove it. I maintain, le can consistently be a 30 goal a season striker, they are rare. Kane, doing well, but let’s see how he does in the second season when defenders work him out. Also worth remembering costa and Kane are in teams that get much more sympathetic treatment from refs than Giroud and his colleagues. Costa gets away with a hell of a lot.
    Nice article, but let’s not go over board, next you will be saying Coqs stats are better than those of Schneiderlin or even Matic, could lead to an AAA meltdown, or even a boycott of this site……and wouldn’t that be a shame.

  14. HFBs real strength is how often he makes the pass which should have become an assist (the pass before the final pass/assist). He puts players in the position were we should be able to create a goal more often than not, but unfortunately we’re not as clinical as we should be in many cases. As far as I can see, no other striker is as good at that. He’s on a ‘confidence’ scoring run at the moment and that is a big part of every strikers game but when his confidence isn’t so strong then he scores much less and I think there are better finishers then. But the quality he adds to the whole team is really ‘world class’.

  16. Tailgunner – No. I found this article interesting. I was unaware of those stats so I have learnt something new this morning.

  17. Interesting Dave Right. Bet Riley didn’t want VT when he refereed us against Utd though

  18. Giroud’s a quality player. He has comprehensively exceeded my expectations and continues to surprise me.

    Something that adds complexity to the debate, but doesn’t excuse any of the excessive or simply wrong criticism of him in the past, is the fact he has been improving as a player so much in his time with us.

    It took me a while, a long while, but I believe I am only now beginning to see the full implications of Wenger’s preference for intelligent players : smart players aren’t simply characterised by showing brains out on the pitch, they are the guys who use the disappointments the game throws at them in order to improve. If you don’t think about the game deeply, the chances of making the most of your ability and continuously improving throughout your career must be greatly reduced.

    I think most managers here are probably missing a trick by looking at players and going ‘oh, look how good he is at 18, 21,23- I’ll motivate him and he’s bound to be even better in a few years time’, instead of looking out for tell-tale signs of self-motivated players who demonstrate a determination to improve their game. I suppose that’s tied in with really enjoying the game. If you love the game and you’ve got some brains about you, chances are you’ll be trying to use all your football experiences in order to improve.

    Those players have got to be where the value is, and it’s why Giroud’s proving a great buy and Podolski was quite a strange one.

    I’ve got a feeling that despite the incredible set of strengths when you add Sanchez, Wellbeck and Walcott to the mix, Wenger will be seeking to add something different next year up top. Don’t know what that’ll be and don’t think any pressing need for it exists other than in games against the very best, but I’m sure he’ll have some good ideas.

    Seems unfair on Giroud, is in fact, to say he isn’t capable of magic, even more so with Sanchez, but I don’t think either quite have what Henry and, in the latter years, Van Persie had in terms of being someone you feel, against the best, there’s a very high chance they’ll make something happen even when the opposition are on top or you’re struggling, if you can just produce one good pass to them in the danger area. Those players are so rare and Wenger is surely looking.

  19. Surely we can forgive Giroud for one bad game at home to Monaco

    I forgave Dennis for his penalty miss in 1999, and Thierry for his miss in Paris.

    They both had far greater consequences than the home game against Monaco.

  20. Ollie is a victim of two events before and after his arrival.

    1. The painful departure of the best striker in the league at the time in RvP and

    2. Arsenal’s failure to sign Suarez (which I am most thrilled by, BTW).

    Much of the hatred directed towards Giroud is usually from covetousness and of course and our fans lack of perspective whenever we fail to get a desired result.

  21. Giroud is The most under rated big man in world football, his contribution is amazing… For so many years, we have begged for a player who can hold the ball up and allow are defense some time to reset there positions. Granted he will never be Henry, Bergkamp, Wright, or many other greats we’ve had over the years but in time all of fans will see the benefits of having Giroud around, not only can he hold the ball, his link up play is top draw, his passing and vision is not to shabby either, and whilst his finishing can be erratic at times he boast 1 goal every 2 games since joining us… And he has finished every season with a decent tally of assist and chances created allowing players like Rambo, cazorla, Sanchez and Walcott to get in on the goal scoring fun.

  22. It’s no secret Giroud is my favorite gunner. It’s no secret that his numbers are very, very good, either.

    But that’s not the point in my opinion. The point is that only people who watch Arsenal play fully understand his contribution and how he changes our game. Remember how we looked during his injury? It was very much a one man show – his name was Sanchez, and he was brilliant, but to be honest, it did not seem like very much of a team effort, and it wasn’t – for sure – “the Arsenal Way”. It was Alexis taking the ball, going through 2 defenders, and curling a great ball into the net.

    So now he is being more closely guarded (read: fouled) and his threat is somewhat mitigated.

    Going back to Giroud – the additional element he adds is the pivot-like positioning. I truly believe that it can be proved by Ramsey’s functioning in the last season, and the current one. Without Giroud, who knows how to hold up play amazingly, our box to box midfielders could not make those runs into the final third without being exposed. Giroud gives us that extra dimension which can free up a midfield runner or a winger cutting into the middle, to receive the pass.

    Add to that his scoring and assisting, his selflessness and the fact that he rarely makes the wrong decision football wise (my point is that he has a huge footballing brain).

    So really, to all of the world who “discovered” him finally – glad you all joined in …

  23. Why people don’t like Giroud?
    He was a ‘unknown’ and ‘cheap’ buy from Wenger. And for some Wenger can do nothing right so Giroud must be a flop.
    As usual Wenger has improved Giroud and has lifted him to another level.
    Again for some Wenger can do nothing right so they still refuse to see the improvement from Giroud and keep on writing him down.

  24. Correct Walter. And the fact he is a striker, Kos was also cheap and unknown, but the critics usually have taken more kindly to him. Cannot wait to see what wenger turns Welbeck into, once he improves his finishing a bit, he is going to be a monster!

  25. I am confused as to why so much hate to AFTV?
    They seem to show all fan views whether pos or neg which mainstream media does not do(Everyone can get their say whether pos or neg, is that not what we all want, free speech and opinions in the media?).

    Of course there are some on there who are just silly(5 mins of fame etc.) but there are many sensible views also. There is a balance of opinions on AFTV as far as i can see for the times i’ve watched it. I see the emotions of those rising and falling depending on the teams performances, which is completely natural, and each of them displays emotions in their own unique way.

    If they start to edit what they show than they become like everyone else, polarised to pos or neg, or spouting their own agenda out.

  26. para,

    Nah, AFTV’s negative tag is well earned. They are nothing but a bunch of fickle fuckers. The prevailing position is ALWAYS in tandem with whatever result Arsenal just got. We draw from a winning position or lose and all hell is let loose by the big babies who contribute to the ‘channel’. I only check them out for a good laugh, they don’t represent me or many of the sensible Arsenal fans that I know.

    Oh BTW, it is NOT natural to let your emotion rise and fall with results. Well not natural for grown up fans – they take the good with the bad and look forward to a better performance engendered by their continued support. This notion that fans should turn to pathetic cry babies every time results are not favourable is ridiculously childish.

    Fuck AFTV and their fickleness. They give mature Arsenal fans a bad name.

  27. Those Giroud numbers are impressive especially when you consider he was out for 3 months this season with injury. Imagine how many more goals he’d have at this stage had he been fit & available to play. He’s done brilliantly & deserves credit.

    Also not sure if anyone has notived but Cazorla currently has the most assists.

  29. Rantetta,

    Do you by any chance have a mash up/compilation of AFTV from a early last year showing the bunch in their fickle glory? Robbie got Youtube to take the video down but I am hoping that someone had stored it in a different format elsewhere on the Internet. If you know of such please kindly share. I so regret not downloading that video while it was still up.

  38. True, because Giroud did not cost 65m some people think he is rubbish. That’s the way they think; expensive means quality. Sorry I’ve not reread all the comments, but I’m pretty sure someone has already dismissed the data supplied to back this article up. If they would supply their own data then there wouldn’t be anything wrong with tha. but they never.

  39. Boo2me

    Sorry, I haven’t got that video, but I see Alex has posted some possibilities.

    Thanks Alex. I’ll have a mosey…

  44. Walter thanks for the article. Even with the facts some people can’t be convinced of Giroud’s worth. So many other posters have pointed out his qualities so I don’t need to. What’s interesting is he’s like a classic English Centre Forward – strong, good in the air, holds up and doesn’t get credit. Because he’s an Arsenal player? French? A Wenger purchase? If he were English maybe it would be different.

  46. Gunz

    Thanks for that.
    I’ve watched. Not sure if that one was post-ironic stylee or what.

    Some time ago when I first saw a piece from them, they showed a woman who talked about hoping we’d win the FA cup so she could dance around behind the bus. I loved that. And that was it.

  47. Gunz: Thank you for the link.
    The comments on this Fan TV segment are just priceless.
    Anyway, this Claude guy is always contradicting himself.
    Ty is a realistic glass-is-half-full kind of supporter.
    And Claude is ominously wearing an anti-Arsenal necktie.

  48. I don’t normally watch you tube garbage, but I watched the 2 idiots & dildo fatso. I am not impressed with any of it. No intelligence just technology in the hands of morons – like the ones on the goal line in European competition.

    How can anyone with common sense watch that for more than a few seconds?

  49. I am still very concerned with the 2 knees in Girouds back. The FA should look into that & punish the violent prat for attempting to break OG’s back. The damned PGMO blind mice saw nothing at all. Watch the replays & none show the angle where contact is made. Time for Arsenal to collate their own video & publish on Player.

  50. A knee in the back was what caused Neymar being stretchered off in the world cup and almost ended with him having a very serious injury.

  51. I am going to objective. The reason people say that he isn’t “world class” is that he does not have a finish like the likes of Augero, Costa and a certain Dutch guy that defected to United.

    Then again, Giroud attacks the ball in the box far better than any of those 3, simply because he is bigger and stronger.

    So to borrow a term…..it all evens out!

  52. The greatness of Giroud is that he appears to be work shy but in reality he has an amazing positional sense. His radar is not always accurate with the goal posts but that is due to his lack of matches while injured. He is getting back to fitness & when he gets to optimum there will be ecstasy in the ranks of the faithful.

    Alexis has been kept away from the middle of the goal area (probably to avoid injury) so he appears to be goal shy. When he is allowed to reposition, there will be some specials.

  53. I think everyone is jealous of Olivier Giroud. I have not seen a player with such perfect combination of brute, brains and beauty since the great Fernando Redondo.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *