Francis Jeffers
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| Francis Jeffers | ||
 |
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| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Francis Jeffers | |
| Date of birth | 25 January 1981 | |
| Place of birth | Liverpool, England | |
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) | |
| Playing position | Striker | |
| Club information | ||
| Current club | Sheffield Wednesday | |
| Number | 9 | |
| Youth clubs | ||
| ?-1998 | Everton Academy | |
| Senior clubs1 | ||
| Years | Club | App (Gls)* |
| 1998-2001 2001-2004 2003-2004 2004-2006 2005 2006-2007 2007 2007- |
Everton Arsenal → Everton (loan) Charlton Athletic → Rangers (loan) Blackburn Rovers → Ipswich Town (loan) Sheffield Wednesday |
49 (18) 22 (4) 18 (0) 20 (3) 8 (0) 10 (0) 9 (4) 10 (2) |
| National team2 | ||
| 1999-2001 2003 |
England U21 England |
16 (13) 1 (1) |
|
1 Senior club appearances and goals |
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Francis Jeffers (born 25 January 1981 in Liverpool) is an English footballer, currently playing for Sheffield Wednesday.
Contents |
[edit] Club career
[edit] Early career
A striker, Jeffers began his career at Everton, making his debut as a half-time substitute (for Dave Watson) on Boxing Day 1997 at Old Trafford at the age of 16 years 335 days.[1] 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 £12m. 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.
Charlton manager Alan Curbishley announced Jeffers would leave the club after his contract expired in the summer of 2006. He had been linked with moves to Bolton Wanderers, Championship side Coventry City, and even a return to Goodison Park for Everton.
[edit] Blackburn Rovers
Initially, Coventry City looked favourites to get his signature, only for Blackburn Rovers to offer him a contract. Unable to resist the lure of Premier League football, Jeffers signed for Blackburn on June 30, 2006 with a two-year contract.[2]
He joined Championship side Ipswich Town on a one month loan deal on March 2, 2007, scoring his first goal for Ipswich on his full debut away at Hull City. In this match, he also received the man of the match award for scoring and setting up a goal. Ipswich went on to win the game 5-2. He returned to Blackburn after suffering a hamstring injury against Southend United F.C., but having made a quick recovery, he was allowed to return to Ipswich on loan until the end of the 2006/07 season.
Ipswich had tried to negotiate a permanent move for Jeffers but after having two bids rejected (£250,000 & £600,000), Ipswich Chairman David Sheepshanks accused Blackburn of holding his club to ransom. Ipswich did however make a third and final bid for Jeffers but after all the wrangling between the two clubs, personal terms could not be agreed.
[edit] Sheffield Wednesday
Jeffers joined Sheffield Wednesday on August 9, 2007 for a fee believed to be in the region of £700,000 on a three year deal, and was given the number 9 jersey to take the place of the Scottish footballer Steve MacLean, a former fan favourite. Jeffers made his debut in an opening day 4-1 defeat at Ipswich Town. He sustained an injury which kept him out of action for all but 20 minutes of the first month of the 2007-008 season.
On returning from injury Jeffers was originally subjected to a level of criticism by some quarters of the Wednesday fan base. However he managed to wipe away most of that with a 25 yard screamer against Hull City after flicking the ball on to his strike partner Deon Burton for the lay off. The goal brought an end to a 6 game losing streak at the start of the 2007-08 Football League Championship season.
After a lively start against Stoke City however, Jeffers was on the end of a late tackle from Ryan Shawcross and was taken off the pitch on a stretcher. First reports labelled the ankle broken, but after a couple of scans it was announced that he had damaged ligaments and would be out for roughly 3 months, a big blow after he had caused Stoke's defence lot's of trouble in his 40 minutes on the pitch, setting up Marcus Tudgay for 2 goals, to help Sheffield Wednesday to a 4-2 away win.
Jeffers made his return from his ankle injury as a substitute versus Hull City, but ended up on the losing side after a 1-0 loss. Just 48 hours later Jeffers played at Hillsborough for the first time in two months, and not only played for 45 minutes of the game, but also scored the winning goal after 82 minutes from the penalty spot. This was Jeffers' second goal for the Owls.
Francis failed to complete a full 90 minutes of football during his first season in South Yorkshire.
[edit] International career
He has one cap for England, scoring on his debut, a consolatory goal in a defeat at the hands of Australia in 2003. He is one of small group of players to have scored on their sole appearance for England.
Jeffers is also the joint all-time leading scorer for England Under-21s with 13 goals, a record he shares with Alan Shearer.
[edit] References
- ^ Man Utd 2 - 0 Everton, 26-12-1997 (Match summary)
- ^ "Blackburn snap up striker Jeffers", bbc.co.uk, 3 July 2006. Retrieved on 2008-02-14.
[edit] External links
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