But it is a side to him that Reds fans never saw with the striker still held in high-regard despite a brief stint with the club coming to an end over 18 years ago. He won the PFA Young Player of the Year and the Premier League title, scored in an FA Cup final victory at Wembley, scored a Premier League hat-trick, and then left for Real Madrid for a record fee of £22.3million all within three months of turning 20. Yet Anelka’s biggest task was never scoring goals nor winning trophies, but making friends along the way. He won the PFA Young Player of the Year and the Premier League title, scored in an FA Cup final victory at Wembley, scored a Premier League hat-trick, and then left for Real Madrid for a record fee of £22.3million all within three months of turning 20. READ: A tribute to young Nicolas Anelka at Arsenal, one of the best transfers ever. As a player, he regularly featured in his country's national team , often scoring at crucial moments. If that is the case, Anelka can point at a medal collection of which any player would be proud and a career total of 210 goals. Nicolas Anelka joined Arsenal from Paris Saint-Germain as a 17-year-old in 1997 and would go on to light up the Premier League at an astonishingly young age. “I was playing at PSG at the time but didn’t have good relations with the coach so when Gerard Houllier called my agent saying he wanted me for Liverpool, it was a yes immediately,” the striker recalls in an exclusive interview with the ECHO. However, the Frenchman wasn’t even sure he would feature against Liverpool’s fierce rivals, revealing how a pre-match talk with coach Jacques Crevoisier secured a starting role and fired him up for the occasion. A detailed recollection of Arsenal 3-2 Manchester United, 1997, Liverpool, Gerard Houllier & a summer which reshaped English football. Rightly or wrongly, it is a reputation Nicolas Anelka was never able to shift during his illustrious playing career, founded by his desire to leave Arsenal prior to his move to Real Madrid in 1999. I have won the Champions League so don’t speak about me being not ready for this game. Our. That may well be true, but perceptions stick like an unpleasant odour in a small room. “We had a strong squad with power, stamina, agility, speed, experience and youth. He was nicknamed Le Sulk as early as 1999 for a perceived lack of enthusiasm, labelled as moody, unfriendly, disruptive and subdued. Robbie is a pure number nine! Such a reputation ultimately laid the path for the striker’s loan move to Liverpool in December 2001, though there have also been suggestions it also contributed to costing him a permanent move to Anfield. “We were in negotiations and Gerard Houllier told me that I was going to sign so I was motivated to show him he made the right choice.”. Anelka was also upset by the negative publicity that followed every poor performance in England. Can you name the top 25 French goalscorers in Premier League history? Well, having not lost in the league since January, it was Liverpool’s defeat to Tottenham which ultimately saw their title challenge fall short. This is what motivated me,” Anelka explains. Most impressive of all was Anelka’s longevity at the highest level. If he doesn’t want to play me, I accept it but don’t come with these kinds of excuses.’, “He finally put me in the starting XI and I scored against Everton. There are certainly those who refute the suggestion that Anelka was moody. But when I went it was like I had killed someone,” Anelka would later tell the Daily Mail’s Matt Lawton. “He’d just won the Ballon d’Or and again, as a competitor, you want to play alongside and compete against the best. explains more about how we use your data, and your rights. The smile is flimsy proof that they understand how much it all means. “But it is the perception of people who don’t know me.”. Wherever the Frenchman plied his trade, he always guaranteed goals. The wider public’s inability to remember that, to some footballers, playing the sport is a career rather than life ambition, continues to hamper those who have the temerity to remain professional but not passionate. Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard both regret Anelka’s departure from Liverpool as a mark of their club stepping in the wrong direction, while at Chelsea Ray Wilkins described Anelka as “a joy to work with”. Wherever Anelka went, his perceived personality went before him. The feeling was we could win the title because we had everything in the squad to be able to do it. Unfortunately for Anelka, Houllier infamously u-turned as he decided against signing the striker permanently and instead turned to El Hadji Diouf. In hindsight the perfect farewell, Anelka admits he thought at the time he was signing for Liverpool permanently, hoping his performances would justify Gerard Houllier’s decision. “I didn’t know (I wasn’t staying). • • • • READ: A tribute to … The Merseyside Derby proved to be a turning point for Anelka with the striker, cup-tied so unable to play in the Champions League, starting all but one of the Reds’ remaining league fixtures from thereon in while the title remained up for grabs. As with Dimitri Seluk and Yaya Toure, the words of an associate can easily ebb away at a player’s goodwill. The accusation is that, after shining so brightly at Arsenal, the rest of his career was a futile attempt to recapture that early morning sunshine.
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