Football Alphabet Premier League - "G" for Giggs, Giroud, Giaccherini and Gedo

It really should be against the law to go through an alphabet of the Premier League and not mention Ryan Giggs and that’s why Mr Premier League himself is first up in our foray into the letter “G”.

Ryan Giggs is probably the only player that will be mentioned in this whole series that actually pre-dates the beginning of the Premier League, making his league debut for Manchester United in March of 1991 (the Premier League kicked off at the start of the 1992 -1993 season). In the twenty plus years since that debut, Giggs has ended up with a league winners medal on no less than 13 occasions! In November 2013 he will be 40 years old and has already featured in 3 of the first 4 games of the current season. The Welshman is the only player to have scored in every season (114 league goals total) of the Premier League’s existence so far and has never been sent off for his club. I don’t think any genuine football fan would begrudge this player his place in this alphabet.

Olivier Giroud has a goal per game (4) at the start of this new season and one would think he is well on the way to smashing past the 11 goals he scored in the league last season. Signed on the back of a very impressive season for Montpellier (21 league goals) in 2011-2012, Giroud initially struggled to make his mark in English football. However, he seems to have settled and with the likes of Mesut Ozil, Santi Carzorla, Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey to feed him the ball, you sense it could be a bumper season for the French international.

Emanuele Giaccherini is one of the (it feels like hundreds) new signings at Sunderland this season. With 15 caps for Italy and 40 appearances for Juventus, on paper at least the player has plenty of pedigree. There are so many new players at the Stadium of Light, however, that it may be a tough season to be thrown into English football. At least he will be able to understand his manager’s frantic gesticulating on the touchline!

Gedo (Mohamed Nagy) rounds off our look at this section of the Premier League alphabet and he is a player that at the time of writing has yet to feature for Hull City in the top division. With 17 goals in 33 appearances for the Egyptian national team, Steve Bruce will be hoping he can do something similar for the Tigers. On the 16^th September 2013 it was confirmed that the club had received all of the relevant paperwork to allow Gedo to begin his Premier League career.