From delight to dejection – Giroud’s sad farewell to the Milan derby

Olivier Giroud has experienced a fair amount of derby delight while at AC Milan, but that turned to disappointment in what was almost certainly his final game against Inter on Monday night.

As La Gazzetta dello Sport write, Giroud must have been tormented by the suffering of not being able to lend a hand to the team while his team-mates wandered aimlessly up front, hostages of the Nerazzurri’s trap.

Giroud’s last Milanese derby passed by like this in a way that is sad for the fans but for him a little more, given it was an undeserved farewell to a fixture that he has experienced a lot of joy in.

Over the course of his three seasons with the Rossoneri, Giroud has always been the man for the key matches, the player to be preserved in view of the big match. This time he was made to sit on the bench.

The three questions

Among the various charges presented by the fans to Stefano Pioli is the decision to leave Giroud out of the starting line-up for a game of this magnitude, even if he has shown a bit of fatigue lately.

The coach was desperate for a solution to undermine Simone Inzaghi’s plan at least once so he tried the Rafael Leao as the centre-forward. In a decisive derby (for Inter), these are those circumstances in which if you get it right you’re a visionary, otherwise it looks far worse.

Leao wandered like a troubled soul, with two real centre-forwards (Giroud and Luka Jovic) and one adaptable (Noah Okafor) relegated to the bench. There is a tactical question, of experience, and also a character one given that Giroud has often helped the team through difficult moments with goals from nowhere.

The absence of someone leading the attack in the derby was exposed dramatically, even if he is 37 years of age and has struggled for form a bit more in recent weeks.

Finally there is a question of opportunity, i.e. giving him the chance to go out with a bang in this particular fixture, which comes last in the scale of priorities that makes a coach choose the starting XI before a match, but in this case it is not negligible.