Giroud revels as Chelsea match winner

Cape Town - Olivier Giroud was delighted to be back on the scoresheet, in Chelsea's 1-0 Europa League victory over BATE on Thursday night.

The Frenchman, who has been something of a non-scoring striker this season, broke the deadlock, and his goalscoring drought, in the 52 minute at the Borisov Arena.

Despite a lack of goals from Giroud this season, the forward has been massively important for the Blues for his work in creating goals.

But after netting the winner to secure Chelsea's progression to the knockout phase of this competition, the former Arsenal was naturally very happy.

He told Sky Sports: "They played with a very deep block in the first half and it was difficult for us to find solutions between the lines and spaces in behind.

"At the end of the day we are happy with the three points because we want to finish first but we played a very good team.

"They had great team cohesion, they defended all together and they were dangerous on the counter attack."

He added: "I was hoping to score soon because I came back late from the World Cup and I was lacking maybe a bit of efficiency and luck, but you always need to keep working hard and keep the faith and that’s what happened."

One more point from their two final Group L games with see Chelsea end as group winners. They next face Greek side PAOK at home before going to Hungary to face MOL Vidi.

Giroud concluded: "The manager kept saying we need to qualify from the group, and the earlier the better, so we’ve done the job even if we could have been more efficient."