Francis Jeffers

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Francis Jeffers
Personal information
Full name	Francis Jeffers
Date of birth	January 25, 1981
Place of birth	Liverpool, England
Height	5'9"/1.75 m
Nickname	Goal Machine
Position	Striker
Club information
Current club	Blackburn Rovers
Number	17
Youth clubs
? - 1998	Everton
Professional clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (goals)
1998-2001 2001-2003 2003-2004 2004-2006 2006 2006-	Everton Arsenal →Everton (loan) Charlton Athletic →Rangers (loan) Blackburn Rovers	60 (20) 22 (4) 18 (1) 20 (3) 08 (0) 08 (0)
National team**
1999-2001 2003	England U21 England	16 (13) 01 (1)
* Professional club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 21:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)). ** National team caps and goals correct as of 16:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC).

Francis "Franny" Jeffers (born January 25, 1981 in Liverpool) is an English football player currently playing for English Premiership club Blackburn Rovers.

A striker, Jeffers began his career at Everton, making his debut in 1998 at the age of 17. Showing a lot of early promise and talent, he scored 20 goals in 60 matches for the Toffees. His performances caught the eye of Arsène Wenger, who signed him for Arsenal in 2001 for a fee over £8m. However, Jeffers did not live up to the "fox in the box" tag, and his time at Arsenal was dogged by injury and poor form.

He returned to Everton for 2003-04 on loan, but only scored once in 18 appearances for his side, before falling out with manager David Moyes and prematurely returning to London. He was sold for £2.6m to Charlton in the summer of 2004. In 2004-05 he scored 5 goals in 24 matches.

He joined Rangers on loan on August 31, 2005 for six months but returned in December after his performances failed to live up to expectation.

He has one cap for England, scoring on his debut, a consolatory goal in a defeat at the hands of Australia in 2003. Jeffers is also the joint all-time leading scorer for England Under-21s with 13 goals, a record he shares with Alan Shearer.

Charlton manager Alan Curbishley announced Jeffers would leave the club after his contract expires in the summer of 2006. He had previously been linked with a move to Bolton Wanderers, Championship side Coventry City or, even a return to Goodison Park for Everton.

Initially, Coventry City looked favourites to get his signature.^{[citation needed]} However, on 30 June 2006 it surfaced that Blackburn stopped Jeffers finalising his move offering him Premiership football, after the loss of Paul Dickov and Craig Bellamy, something that had left City fans reeling.

He completed his transfer to Blackburn on 3 July 2006, signing a two-year contract.[1].

[edit] External links

• FootballDatabase provides Francis Jeffers's profile and stats
• Francis Jeffers career stats at Soccerbase

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