Olivier Giroud is the man of the moment after his incredible scorpion kick opened the scoring against Crystal Palace on New Year¹s Day.
But what was running through his mind when he went for it?
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He revealed all to the media after the match, and this is what he said:
on what was going through his mind…
I go first post and Alexis give me the ball a bit behind me and I tried to take it from back heel and I have maximum luck. It’s just about luck, I was not good balance. It was a great feeling and even more because I wanted to score from the first minute from the natural cross and it was a bit short. That’s why I really wanted to score…
on whether he’s ever done that before…
No, no. Not at all. So that’s why I told you…
on whether he thought about Mkhitaryan goal…
In this position you can’t do something else so I was lucky and it’s nice for me and it’s nice for the team. I think it’s my best one.
on his view of the goal…
HB - I couldn’t believe it, that’s why I went straight to him. It’s a great goal. I’ve seen Oli do stuff like that in training. I know what he’s capable of. We’re very excited as well because it was the first goal of the game and we had the ball, we had lots of chances so it’s nice when you finally get one in.
on the Bournemouth game…
We need to keep going in a good momentum to stay up and carry on. The teams in front are doing very well, they are in a strong run as well, so yeah we need to respond and it’s nice to win this first game of the year.
on whether it’s the best goal he’s ever scored…
Yes, I think so. It’s not difficult to say that is the best one, because I think I needed good help to score this goal. Thanks God, I was a bit lucky but it was the only thing I could do. The ball was behind me and I tried the back heel and obviously, after that, it was all about luck.
on whether he saw the Mkhitaryan goal…
Yeah, maybe it inspired me. That’s the only thing, one more time, we can do in that position. It’s nice for me, for the team, because we wanted to start well the year and here we go.
on his conversation with Yohan Cabaye…
He just said that it was freezing tonight. That’s all.
on the second goal…
We wanted to score the second goal as quickly as we could, but before half-time we pushed and we pushed. As we are doing since a few games, we’re struggling a bit when we came back from the dressing room and it was nice to kill the game, if I can say. After, we could keep the ball.
on what we have to do to close the gap…
Keep winning. To hope for a mistake from the front teams and we need to win and hope that if we don’t win, that there is no point to hope anything. We need to keep focused and a good momentum to keep going and we have a few games to come before the important Chelsea one. So we want to win every single game to have a big game at Stamford Bridge.
on whether they have the King’s cake in France on New Year’s Day…
Yeah, it’s in one week.
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