When it was announced that former PSG, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Chelsea and Juventus player Nicolas Anelka would join West Bromwich Albion as of July 4th 2013, expectations were high, especially when he stated that he would like to end his career in England, with Albion. Expectations grew for Anelka as he enjoyed a good pre-season, linking up well with Markus Rosenberg, who never scored in a professional game for Albion, throughout. However, controversy followed Mr Anelka as, after playing just one game, he walked out of training for compassionate leave and there were doubts over whether he would retire where he returned to training after a week in preperation for Albion's game against Swansea.
Nicolas Anelka didn’t score his first goal for The Baggies until December 28th, his first appearance for 2 months, where he scored a brace in Albion’s 3-3 draw away with West Ham. In his celebration, Anelka performed a Quenelle celebration which is describe as an inverted Nazi
Salute. This was soon
investigated by The FA,
anti-racism organisations
and Albion. Despite an FA
disciplinary hearing
concluding that they “Did
not find that Nicolas Anelka
is an anti-Semite or that he
has intended to express or
promote anti-Semitism by
his use of the Quenelle”,
they banned Anelka for 5 matches, fined him £80,000 and ordered him to complete an
educational course. After this, Nicolas Anelka took to twitter to announce he was terminating his contract with Albion who responded by stating that Anelka had given them no notification of his intention to leave and later gave him 14 days’ notice of termination from the club for gross misconduct. It is not confirmed whether the misconduct was for his celebration or his antics on twitter. What is confirmed is that he was not worth it the hassle that he brought to the club. With 2 goals in 9 appearances, a retire threat, controversial celebration and 5 game ban, Anelka should definitely be considered as another big-named flop.
The former Chelsea, Swansea, Manchester City and Team GB star arrived at The Hawthorns in search of first-team football after making just 3 starts for City since joining them in August 2012. The Baggies signed the exciting English winger on a season long loan after he played just 190 minutes of football in a season. However, Sinclair
has just made 4 starts so far
for The Baggies, finding it hard
to break into the first time.
Having enjoyed such a
successful time at Swansea,
you can only wonder why he
isn’t breaking into the first
team, or even the subs bench.
He has spent most of his time
at The Hawthorns playing in
reserve matches and hasn’t
featured much under Clarke or Mel throughout the season.
The question for that is, is Scott Sinclair actually doing enough to get in Albion’s first team plans? I would think not. Any player, no matter what expectation or what club he has been at, needs to prove himself in training and it can only be assumed that he is not, especially with youngsters such as Kemar Roofe being preferred to him. Unless Sinclair makes a turnaround towards the end of the season, he will definitely be considered as a flop, despite his young age.
One thing can be said for Albion, the big guns don't really work out but we can sure find a bargain or two. Jonas Olsson and Youssouf Mulumbu were signed for next to nothing and have been great servants to the club whilst Gareth McAuley and Claudio Yacob were captured for free. If you're good at something, why change it? Stick to what you're good at, Albion.
"Albion responded by stating that Anelka had given them no indication of his intention to leave"
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