Anelka’s talents deserve better than Bolton
For all his faults and problems, Nicolas Anelka’s talent deserves a bigger stage and a better club than Bolton Wanderers.
Bolton are in the Uefa Cup this season and that may placate the fans but for Anelka time is running out on his career and if he wants to play in Europe, he needs to make the tough call and move.
Problem is, I don’t know if any non-Premiership club would be willing to carry his wages, nor do I think any of the top 4 in the Premiership would move for him at this point (Arsenal and United could have early on but this late? Those clubs have already made their major buys).
So unless Sevilla or Valencia pick him up, or unless Roma or Milan fancy him, Anelka might have to contend with Uefa Cup football. I don’t think the situation is desperate enough that he’d move to France or Germany to get a shot at the Champions League / league titles, but for me, Anelka needs to get out of Bolton.
And for all the Bolton fans who are going to trash this article, all I’m saying is that Anelka doesn’t have the time to wait for Bolton to be a big club.
Topics: Bolton Wanderers
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Bolton fan who agrees with you.Our board will sell him at the first opportunity anyway.
August 15th, 2007 @ 21:13To qualify for Europe and sign trash like O’Brien,Helguson,Alonso,Samuel etc is totally unambitous.
Yeah Ahmed, he ‘deserves’ better. I think he should sign for one of the Top 4 so that he can make sure the Premiership is even more one-sided and he can develop himself into a Champions League substitute. After all, that’s what football is all about.
Could we re-name this site, “Symbolic of the #######isation of football.com”?
August 15th, 2007 @ 21:31Ahmed
Could you start a thread suggesting all Clubs outside Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea should just voluntarily fold and all their fans just contribute their salaries by direct debit to Malcolm Glazer? Thanks in advance…
I’ve got a strapline for the site now
#######isation of football.com
August 15th, 2007 @ 21:34-taking ‘soccer’ further up its own ####
Ahmed why you stick to making comments about a sport that you know something about, may I suggest Cricket. There is no better club than BWFC.
August 15th, 2007 @ 22:10FC – you’re very bitter, aren’t you?
You have an account on SL, still, which you can use anytime to voice your views…that is, if the huge chip on your shoulder lets you.
Here I am voicing an opinion that Anelka has little time left in his career if he wants to play CL football and he’s good enough to start for the top four sides anyway.
The opposite extreme of your viewpoint (since yours is extreme) would be that all players should put their personal ambitions on hold and be slaves to what the club says, and then be discarded like trash when the player is turned on by the fans (Reo-Coker, anyone?).
You’ve taken an opinion and twisted it around into an imaginary argument and ranted against it. I’m not even touching the big-club / little-club divide that you seem so bent on discussing every single time anything gets written here.
So if you’re up for discussing your views, sign in and let it rip. As long as it’s well-written and not abusive (yes, I remember my lessons), it’ll go up.
But mind you, if it’s extreme, which I feel your reactions are, then you’re only making it worse.
August 15th, 2007 @ 22:23Firstly you really got to start blocking some of these dicks who trash stuff mindlessly. Moving on .. yea his quality is great and he should move on from a club who think de la cruz and helguson is progress, but to what ? he has already proved he is unhappy at the big clubs, ie madrid arsenal liverpool etc. and then clubs like bolton and fenerbache arnt going to give him the football he wants to play ? so the real question is what club isnt big enough where his place isnt challenged but isnt so small that they can give him the football he wants ? the only option is france germany or some eastern european/russian club like dinamo kiev, red star belgrade of CSKA moscow .. but i dont see him happy there either. So i guess he never is going to be happy at a club, and he always will be remembered as Le Sulk.
August 16th, 2007 @ 01:24As a Bolton fan, I don’t think his workrate is high enough to be at one of the top clubs, Premiership or elsewhere. He’s a good finisher for sure, but he spends too much of games waiting for opportunities instead of making them.
August 16th, 2007 @ 02:29Guys, I love Bolton and I love Anelka. Anelka’s reputation preceeds him, he doesn’t just stroll around the park waiting for things to happen as some folks have implied. And his talent has never ever been in doubt, nor that of the Bolton team, but with Big Sam gone and some questionable signings things summer you’re gona have to agree with Ahmed and hands up say that Bolton just haven’t become the big club that they should, maybe in the future, just not yet.
August 16th, 2007 @ 04:23anelka to MU!
August 16th, 2007 @ 08:45“all I’m saying is that Anelka doesn’t have the time to wait for Bolton to be a big club.”
Ahmed, you are quite clearly stating that the individual in football effectively should be more important than Club or team. You are also basically saying that he should leave a Club and he “deserves” a better one.
Players sign long contracts, then if a bigger Club comes along they whinge and complain and don’t try anymore despite being paid thousands of Pounds a week to do something they love. Your implication that if a player getting paid such huge sums for playing a sport can be a “slave” is an insult to the millions of people all over the world who work for pennies a day… the kids searching for bits and pieces from garbage dumps to sell on to buy enough rice to live. “Slaves” – this shows your attitude to the “Poor” superstars who are forced to play for Bolton in front of thousands of adoring fans while living in their lives of luxury – you have no sense of perspective from someone whose country of ancestry (I am guessing) continues to have what borders on slave labour. You want me to be sorry for rich footballers?
I am not ‘bitter’ in relation to the small clubbig club divide in itself. But it’s true I am ‘bitter’ that a sport which for a century has been about communities and teams and clubs is now about individuals.
I may have been somewhat sarcastic but in my opinion, your comments about Anelka are an insult to any team outside the Top 4 – which is basically what you personally constantly do (and what most posters on this site do). Now, this winds me up so I comment on it. If you do not wish me to do so then I won’t post anymore. And you can be left with sycophants who use text writing and think they are hardcore supporters because they can recite in ascending order the bra sizes of all the WAGs of the Man Utd forward line. You read the comments about the Man Utd Vs Reading match – you know it’s true that many posters on here haven’t got a clue.
And I love the comment from ‘A’ about ‘dicks’ commenting on the site which I presume was a dig at me. Learn to use capital letters and then post again and you might come across with a bit more authority.
Call me the conscience of this site? And it’s a potato on my shoulder, not a chip.
August 16th, 2007 @ 15:11FC – agreed on most of your points, but here’s the rub, I’m not aiming to insult Bolton, and in the case of Anelka it’s clear that he came to Bolton for the purpose of pushing on to a bigger club. Hell man, his manager says that he’s not going to stand in his way because he wants what’s best for the player.
Anelka’s particular situation is different to the usual ‘big club comes knocking, player flips’ scenario.
because they can recite in ascending order the bra sizes of all the WAGs of the Man Utd forward line
That would be an interesting article, eh?
I’m just kiddin..
And when you say that most fans here don’t have a clue, I think you’re missing the point. Most fans ANYWHERE don’t have a clue.
Most of the time when it comes to judging football matches either I’m a blinkered idiot who see the match completely differently or there’s the other 70-80% who are crazy. I never was one to favor the majority, so I’ll go with your assessment here.
Nothing we can do about that, and to be fair, you shouldn’t be judging a club or a site based on what it’s fans / commenters are like.
August 16th, 2007 @ 16:20The problem with Anelka is, he’s a lazy, arrogant, spoilt troublemaker. He could’ve been a great, but, the only thing he’s been great at, is making fortunes from clubs, who don’t know him. Unfortunately, it will be a long time after he retires, before the prat grows up. I think his big club days are over.
August 16th, 2007 @ 20:56if anelka leaves we have had it in the league
August 16th, 2007 @ 21:26Ahmed – “I’m not aiming to insult Bolton”
If I went around to your house with all your family and your wife at home (if you were married, bear with me here…) and said to her,
“you know what, no offence intended to Ahmed or your in-laws, but you really could do better than him and this family”… it might be ACCURATE and it may not be a direct insult to the Ahmed Bilal family… but it is still insulting isn’t it.
August 17th, 2007 @ 13:38Hmmm…a very good analogy, except that players are contracted to clubs and can be bought and sold (or choose to leave), whereas a marital relationship is quite different (I hope it is for you as well, otherwise I totally understand where you’re coming from
).
So perhaps not an ‘accurate’ analogy, and thus apart from the emotional statement it makes, pretty much besides the point.
August 17th, 2007 @ 15:30You see our differences in perspective, when I refer to “Bolton” I really mean “Bolton fans”. From that perspective, you have some form of emotional relationship with playuers – even if from afar… hence the hero worship and hatred (or both) for certain players.
If it were just a contractual relationship then I would agree. But it’s not – in fact to take the analogy a step further, it’s like me saying to your wife, “you deserve someone richer and more successful than Ahmed and his family” even if the Ahmed Bilal household may be a comfortable loving home… but now this is getting a bit silly so I’ll leave it alone!
August 17th, 2007 @ 17:01