Lyon angling for Giroud approach in the summer

For Olivier Giroud, age is not an issue. Goals are, unfortunately, but age isn’t. He remains as fully committed to the cause as ever, both at club and national team level, but goals have severely dried up over the past 6-12 months. His contract at Chelsea will be expiring even sooner than that, at the end of the season, and while Chelsea hold a club-option for an extension, it seems likely that his future will lie elsewhere.

Because of his overall game, interest in him remains high. He’s reportedly rejected multiple approaches (and lots of money) from the Chinese Super League this winter. French teams were interested in the summer as well, and one of them, Lyon, are already laying the groundwork for next summer, as confirmed by their president, Jean-Michel Aulas.

“I had dreamed of having him come [last year] and I had even called Arsene Wenger for more information. [Former Lyon manager] Gerard Houllier knows him well, too. We had discussed it when I was in Moscow with the France team during the World Cup. Things could not be done, though.

“Now we have a front line that is very well supplied. If someone leaves, [Giroud] could interest us, especially since he has a different profile to our other players.

“[At the end of the season] Giroud will interest me. It seems a little bit soon now. We will not stack the attackers, especially since we have a real team. We will have to see the coach who will be at the end of the season, but I like the boy. He’s a good person.”

-Jean-Michel Aulas; source: Le Figaro via FourFourTwo

Any bets on how soon this will get combined with a Nabil Fekir rumor?

Giroud’s preference is to stay in the Premier League, but he’s seeing his Chelsea future darken and would accept a move back home as well, almost a decade after first making his name at Montpellier, in one of the more unlikely title-winning seasons in top European league history.