Jamie Carragher was full of praise for “underrated” Olivier Giroud after goalscoring performance in Chelea’s 1-0 Champions League win over Atletico Madrid.
The 34-year-old secured the first-leg win with Chelsea in style with a spectacular overhead kick in the second half.
Impressively, that was his sixth goal in the competition — which means he is now up to joint-second place in the Champions League goalscoring charts.
However, Carragher also highlighted that the France international is not merely a goalscorer.
“He [Giroud] is a very underrated player, as I mentioned before,” the former Liverpool centre-back said after the game during CBS Sports live coverage.
“I felt when he was criticised at Arsenal that he wasn’t good enough — he was good enough, he just wasn’t Thierry Henry.
“He then got a move from Arsenal and where did he go? Chelsea, another top club — that shows you the player that he was.
“He is not just about goals, [but also] set-piece wise.
“He’s one of those players that when you listen to Eden Hazard, players love playing with him [because] he loves to bounce the ball off.”
Chronicle view
Giroud seems to be an ideal attacking partner for a lot of smaller forwards, like Hazard, and perhaps even Timo Werner.
The former Chelsea star summed it perfectly in his interview back in September 2018.
“He’s a targetman, maybe the best in the world. I think so,” Hazard said of Giroud (via Sky Sports).
“When he gets the ball, he can hold it and we can go with him. For us, he’s a player to play with.”
And as he proved in the past two seasons, he is also a player who can deliver in the big European stages.
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