With Alvaro Morata injured, Olivier Giroud could be the answer for Chelsea's striker problems

Bengaluru, February 17: Six years may separate Chelsea's summer signing Alvaro Morata and winter recruit Olivier Giroud, but they are not really different when it comes to poaching goals and scoring from their feet.

Life in Chelsea has started well for Giroud, who was directly involved in all three goals against West Brom at Stamford Bridge. He opened his account against Hull in the FA Cup fifth round game on Friday (February 16).

Giroud joined the Chelsea ranks on deadline day January 31 in a three-way transfer among Chelsea, Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund.

3 - Olivier Giroud has been directly involved in three goals in a single match for the first time since January 2017 for Arsenal against Bournemouth. Rampant. #CHEHUL pic.twitter.com/CDtNfWjrD6

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) February 16, 2018

Though coach Antonio Conte has moaned about the way Chelsea buys players, Giroud has been a good acquisition. At least that is what the stats says. He seems to be an able deputy for the injured Morata and the way he helped Hazard score his goal against West Brom in the Premier League on February 13, augurs well for Chelsea. It also does him and France a world of good before the World Cup.

At 31 years, Giroud is 6 years older than Morata and when we compare the two, we find that they are not very different. Both of them have played the role of target men for their clubs and they have been known to score goals with their feet as well. Goals like the famous scorpion kick and Morata's Juventus goal against Real Madrid in the Champions League last year makes it evident that both of them are good with their feet and aren't just target men good at heading crosses.

Olivier Giroud struck his first goal for the club and laid on two for Willian as Chelsea crushed Hull City 4-0 to reach the FA Cup quarter-finals. #UCL pic.twitter.com/t8N7myq4u8

— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) February 16, 2018

If we look at Giroud's season at Arsenal and Morata's season at Real Madrid during the 2016-2017 campaign, Morata managed to do slightly better than his new teammate.

Morata scored 15 goals with 4 assists in 26 games against Giroud's 12 goals and 3 assists in 29 games (we are only considering their league campaigns). They both have six headed goals with Giroud winning 45% of his duels to Morata's 49%. In terms of position, Morata loves to play anywhere in the box whereas Giroud's heat maps show that he thrives on the left side of the box and he rarely plays on the right.

Chelsea badly needed a strong centre-half last month to provide competition for Morata, who was incidentally injured in January. In their desperation, they even considered signing Stoke City's Peter Crouch.

When you ask Arsenal fans if they miss Olivier Giroud. pic.twitter.com/cG7z5dAyyj

— Not Match of the Day (@NOT_MOTD) February 12, 2018

On the other side of London, Arsenal decided to buy someone who could provide competition to Alexandre Lacazette. Dortmund, on the other hand, were fed up with their problem child and decided to get rid of Pierre-Emerrick Aubameyang. Giroud, who was already unhappy at playing second fiddle to Lacazette, joined Chelsea, who loanded out Mitchy Batshuayi to Dortmund.

It made perfect sense for Chelsea to go for Giroud and in today’s market, his £18million price tag seemed irresistible. He will definitely justify that price for the Blues going forward.