Olivier Giroud, experienced striker who signed for the AC Milan club in the previous summer coming from Chelsea, has granted an exclusive interview to Mirror outlet.
The French centre-forward discussed the 'not good enough' tag that some always awarded to him and said the following to hit back:
"Of course it hurts. I’m a human being, a person with emotions and the most important thing is not to pay attention to what people say on social media. But my record at Arsenal? That’s not bad! I’m very happy with that. The story of my life has been people asking if I think I was a bit underrated. I think it’s also partly because I’m not a centre forward with the skills who the youngsters dream about."
Giroud continued:
“But I think the most important thing is to be very efficient because as a striker you are judged on your statistics, how many goals you score, I’m happy to do the pressing that others don’t do and the s*** that others don’t want to do. But it’s so important to me."
“But as a striker, you will always be judged on the stats and when I look back, I tell myself that I am so thankful to God that I’m on the pitch to enjoy my career, he’s always alongside me to help me to make the right decisions. I’ve won so many things in my career that I could never have imagined when I started. When I look back, I am very proud.”
On losing the Euros final vs Portugal and returning for the World Cup:
"That was part of our success because we had to remember the pain we had to lose the final against Portugal. It helped us to remember never to suffer that moment again. I couldn’t be happier than to come back win the World Cup. You always have to learn from this painful moments. I loved the sentence of Nelson Mandela when he said: ‘Don’t judge me about my success, judge me on how many times I got back up again. That was the best reaction we could show. You need to use those motivations to make them better days afterwards."
