The fact he isn't looking at Giroud should neither count for or against him, you don't need to be looking directly at someone's leg to stand on it and still know what you're doing, if you look at it with kinder eyes then yes you could say it was clumsy. People saying you can't read Adam's mind or know his intentions, well it works both ways, you can't definitively either way.
Personally, he's clearly done that on purpose and has quite the record for doing shit like this, I'm no fan of Bale but the bizarre vendetta that Adam seems to have against him is criminal, he's put some absolute shockers on him in particular over the years.
Adam absolutely knows what he's doing, he's just a scumbag who puts in cowardly challenges, so he's right at home at Stoke.