‘No way Chelsea sell astonishing Giroud in January’ – Blues now more concerned about burnout, says Nevin

Olivier Giroud may have seen questions asked of his ongoing presence at Chelsea heading towards the January transfer window, but Pat Nevin says there is no way the Blues are going to part with a striker who has hit an “astonishing” run of form.

The ability and value of a World Cup winner has never been doubted by those at Stamford Bridge.

There is, however, fierce competition for places in west London, with Timo Werner joining Tammy Abraham in an attacking talent pool over the summer.

Giroud has often found himself being the odd man out, with Frank Lampard using him sparingly despite the 34-year-old being a proven Premier League performer.

The France international has always delivered when called upon, though, and plundered a stunning four-goal haul during a recent Champions League outing against Sevilla.

He followed those efforts up with another in a 3-1 win over Leeds, with the former Arsenal star forcing Lampard’s hand by making himself indispensable.

Nevin believes that will bring any exit talk to a close, despite Giroud admitting that he may have to mull over his options, with the only headache facing Chelsea now being how to avoid burning out an in-form frontman.

“The phenomenal week Olivier Giroud has had contains another bunch of reasons to be cheerful,” former Blues winger Nevin told the club’s official website.

“Just a few weeks ago I had people asking me whether Olivier would stay with the club after the January window. This question is asked before nearly every January window to be fair, but I think we all know what the answer is after his five-goal haul in four days.

“His form is astonishing and after wondering for a while how he was going to get enough game time, the question is suddenly reversed, because he is so important to the cause. How do we now make sure he is not overused?

“I did some analysis on him before the Sevilla game. I have talked for many years, without embarrassment and even when he was at Arsenal, about him being the best near-post striker in the world. Well, the hat-trick goal against Sevilla and the first goal versus Leeds just underlined this point for about the 100th time.”

While Giroud has been dominating the headlines of late, Nevin is looking for Werner and Abraham to raise their respective games and become the prolific marksmen that Chelsea are going to need in order to sustain challenges for silverware on multiple fronts.

He added heading into a Champions League clash with Krasnodar on Tuesday that is expected to see Lampard shuffle his pack: “We know the attitude will be good and the chances will flow, but I just hope some of those chances fall to Timo Werner or Tammy Abraham this time.

“We are the top scorers in the Premier League but amazingly our individual top league scorer is Timo with just three, way behind [Dominic] Calvert-Lewin with 11, [Heung-min] Son 10 and then [Mohamed] Salah and [Jamie] Vardy on nine.

“Timo has eight goals in all competitions, so it is still an exceptional start. But for all that spreading the goals around is a good thing, we will eventually need someone who is up there with the top scorers in the league if we are going to be competitive all the way through to May.”