Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud refused to lose confidence whilst being forced to sit on the bench to accommodate Alexis Sanchez in his favoured role.
The Chilean forward filled in at centre-forward at the beginning of the season while the Frenchman was yet to return from international duty, and excelled in the role.
Giroud then had to sit out a huge chunk of the campaign whilst Alexis continued his extremely impressive goalscoring run, which appeared to bring the best out of a number of his team-mates.
The 30 year-old revealed that he remained confident despite being overlooked, for the first half of the term.
“I never had doubts about my quality,” Giroud said.
“When you show what you can do on the pitch it’s better for a striker. I want to carry on like that and keep efficiency high.
“I always try to bring something to the team and I’m very pleased to score important goals.
“But we need to be more stronger at the beginning of games because I’m not going to score goals in the last minute every week!” he added.
Giroud strongly impressed in his time as our super-sub, and was showing exactly why Arsene Wenger has had so much belief in him this season. Arsenal fans have always been quick to turn on Olivier when things have not gone well for the striker, but they have had no reason to get on his back at all this term.
The only negative thing that has been said about Giroud this term was his celebration when levelling the scores after being 3-0 down to Bournemouth in the Premier League, when the team should have been chasing that fourth and winning goal, but the sheer emotion of earning at least the point from such a deficit would have been hard to contain.
Has Giroud enjoyed his most consistent season? Has the competition brought the best out in him?
Pat J