Olivier Giroud is a man Maurizio Sarri will trust for the remainder of the Europa League after a massive showing in the second leg of the round-of-16 tie with Dynamo Kiev.
The Frenchman scored a hat trick against the Ukrainian side to cement his status as the highest scorer of the competition this season. He has nine goals so far and has proven to be a sure-fire go-to forward for Sarri in the cup when resting his other strikers. Without his goals, Chelsea would have been scratching their heads for what went wrong in certain games.
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He competes lately with Gonzalo Higuain, but the Argentina international is preferred for the Premier League matches, leaving Giroud to enjoy the minutes in Europe. So far he has not disappointed. At 30 years, Giroud is likely to be on Chelsea’s contractual bad books – with the club policy of handing one-year contracts to players over the 30-year mark – but he is pushing the limits to be kept in for more years.
Sarri says he has shown he deserves better at the club after his exploits at the Olympic Stadium.
“Olivier was very, very good. Lately, every time he has been on the pitch, he has played very well. He has scored nine goals in this competition. Olivier is a very important player for us. I’m really very happy for him. We started very well. To score after five minutes made it a very difficult situation for Dinamo. We played a very, good first half, and in the second half we managed the result. It was a wonderful performance over 90 minutes.
Callum played very well – better in the second half because we found the spaces, and in the spaces is really a very good player. I’m happy for him but he has to keep the feet on the ground because he can improve more.”
Maurizio Sarri, Daily Express
