Olivier Giroud has revealed that he had extra motivation to do well and win the Europa League final last season because he wanted to show Arsenal that they had let him go too soon.
The Frenchman was shipped out to Chelsea in the winter of 2018 after Arsene Wenger signed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Borussia Dortmund.
He went on to become an important player for the Blues, and he met his former side in the final of the Europa League last season.
He scored the first goal and set up another as the Blues swept aside Unai Emery’s Arsenal to win the game 4-1 and win another European title.
Giroud was speaking to the Chelsea website recently, and he revealed that he wanted to win trophies with Chelsea but he had even extra motivation to win the Europa League because he was playing against Arsenal in the final whom he felt he needed to prove something to.
He told Chelsea’s official club website: ‘It was a very special moment but it was like extra motivation for me because I wanted to show them (Arsenal) that I still had some energy in me and some good years left in me.
‘I scored, I got an assist and I won the penalty so quite a lot of good things happened there for me because I was involved in three goals out of the four that we scored.
‘It was like in a dream because I couldn’t have imagined that it would go so well, so perfectly for us. I wanted to win things at Chelsea – that’s why I was even more motivated that night – but winning against your old club like that.’
