Since last summer no Chelsea player has scored more than 15 goals for the club. No current Chelsea player has scored more than 13 in that time either. The lack of goals on a consistent basis by the team and more specifically attackers has been an issue that won't go away. It's been five years and other than Tammy Abraham, nobody has even threatened to hit 20 goals in a single league season.
That's despite over £300million being spent on the problem. The club transfer record has been broken twice on attackers in the timeframe and Chelsea have paid over the £32million it cost them to sign Diego Costa in 2014 on seven occasions since letting the Spanish forward leave in 2017.
All of this, and other than Abraham the most consistent scorer in attack - other than Mason Mount who is primarily a midfielder anyway - is Olivier Giroud.
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The 35-year-old was allowed to leave for less than £5million last summer as he went searching for first team football. The Frenchman had done what he promised to for all of his Chelsea career, score goals when needed. Under Frank Lampard he had been isolated initially but then thrust into the team where he impressed. He was quickly out of the side again.
Under Thomas Tuchel it was a familiar tale. Giroud scored important goals at important times but was rarely trusted for stretches of matches despite the ongoing underperformances of Kai Havertz and Timo Werner. Giroud, who is just 10 goals short of notching up 100 in the Premier League, would surely get to the century mark even if he was to have one season playing at almost any club in the division, that's his goalscoring nature.
He scored 39 times at Chelsea in three and a half seasons, that's alongside 14 assists. Not many of these games were played in a row or as a truly trusted player. He was a stop gap but massively unfairly so.
Since leaving to join AC Milan, where he has scored 19 times with five assists in 47 games, he has shown Chelsea exactly what they are missing. In eight defining matches last season and so far this campaign Giroud bagged 11 goals and an assist. It is a big game record that almost mirrors Didier Drogba's at Chelsea. He wasn't a striker that scored at one in two games let alone better than that, but Drogba offered plenty more.
This is what Potter now has to find in his Chelsea side. If we look at Brighton there is no standout top scorer, Danny Welbeck has some of his best returns in 10 years under Potter but that is still with just six goals a season. Welbeck's role as a target man to link the play is precisely what Giroud could do. A return to London isn't likely though.
It does show that the £15million paid to get him from Arsenal despite being in his 30s was a shrewd piece of work and perhaps demonstrates a path for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to try and follow. The Gabon forward must find a way to positively impact Chelsea in the final third otherwise Potter will be left watching Giroud score goals like other Chelsea fans wishing that he was still playing in blue.
If it isn't Aubameyang then it might be Armando Broja who is given the chance to impress, but the 20-year-old would need to double his tally from last season to get 12 goals, it's a big question to ask, even if the Albanian does seem up for the fight.
It's damning that fans are purring over the performances of a man closer to 40 than 30 but that's how it's been at SW6 for a long time. If it's not Giroud it's Abraham and Jose Mourinho, if it's not them then sometimes it was the fluid football played by Brighton that caught their eye. Now Potter is onside they need to recreate the underrated and undervalued exploits of Giroud and Abraham before they can think of getting anywhere.
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