Olivier Giroud has admitted that he was so desperate to leave Chelsea back in 2020 that he was ready to sign for Tottenham Hotspur.
Tottenham were on the lookout for a striker in the January of 2020 after Harry Kane suffered a hamstring injury.
The North London club were linked with a whole host of centre-forwards including Giroud at the time (Daily Mail) but in the end, Steven Bergwijn was the Lilywhites’ only signing during that transfer window.
The Frenchman was once again mooted as a target for the Lilywhites 12 months later (Football Insider) but the move did not materialise that time either.
Giroud eventually ended up joining AC Milan last summer, and the former Arsenal man has enjoyed an impressive first season at the San Siro, helping the Rossoneri to win the Scudetto.
The centre-forward has now admitted that he considered joining Tottenham when a move to Inter Milan and Lazio fell through two years.
Considering he played 253 games for Arsenal and scored 105 goals, it would have been a controversial transfer, to say the least (TransferMarkt).
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In a press conference that the striker held in Milan on Thursday to unveil his biography ‘Always believe’, he said (via Football Italia): “At that time (January 2020), I was not getting regular playing time at Chelsea, I was the third-choice striker, so I tried to find a solution with Frank Lampard.
“I couldn’t remain in that situation. I wanted to leave, but Lampard told me that he needed a replacement.
“He promised me that I would have had more chances and gave me the opportunity to do so, I think I scored eight goals in the final ten games of the season, thank God we qualified for the Champions League.
“At that time, Italian clubs were very interested. At one point, Inter told me that they no longer had money to sign me. I had done everything to leave, I also met Lazio’s sporting director Igli Tare, a gentleman, he came to Heathrow airport just to meet me.
“I was so desperate to leave that I even told Lampard that I’d have joined Tottenham because I knew that José Mourinho wanted me.
“In the end, I think it would have been difficult because I had played for Arsenal. Destiny wanted me to be here, wearing the Rossoneri shirt.”
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One can understand why Mourinho wanted Giroud at the time, and the Frenchman has proven since then that he still had a few years left in him at the top level. He would have likely been a much better option than Carlos Vinicius, who we ended up signing the subsequent summer.
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