Nicholas Anelka

Nicolas Sebastian Anelka (born 14 March 1979 in Versailles) is a French football player playing in the forward position, who currently plays for Premier League club Bolton Wanderers. Previous clubs he has played for include Paris Saint-Germain (1996-97, 2000-02), Arsenal (1997-99), Real Madrid (1999-2000), Liverpool (2002), Manchester City (2002-2005) and Fenerbahçe (2005-2006). He was the PFA Young Player of the Year for 1998-1999 Premiership season.

Anelka is the son of two parents from Martinique, Margeurite and Jean-Philippe, who emigrated to Metropolitan France in 1974. In 2002 he converted to Islam [1] and took the Muslim name Abdul-Salam Bilal.

Club Career
Anelka started out at Paris Saint-Germain as a youth player but in November 1996, at the age of 17, he joined Arsenal for a fee of £500,000, soon after the appointment of Arsène Wenger as manager. His first team opportunities were limited in the 1996-97 season but in 1997-98 he broke into the first team (especially after a long-term injury to Ian Wright) and was a key player in Arsenal's Premiership and FA Cup double success that season. Anelka scored the second goal in Arsenal's 2-0 win over Newcastle United in that season's FA Cup final.

A player with exceptional pace and finishing ability, in 1998-99 he won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award, but Arsenal failed to defend their Premiership title and made little progress in the UEFA Champions League. In addition, Anelka made it clear he wanted a better salary than the one Arsenal were offering him. Rumors of his older brothers (who doubled as his agents) galvanizing his career decisions also emerged as the star was renowned for his temperaments with his clubs, forcing him to be left with the unenviable nickname of the 'Incredible Sulk'. He was eventually transferred to Spanish giants Real Madrid in the summer of 1999, for £22.3m. In all he made 90 appearances for Arsenal (including 17 as a substitute), scoring 28 goals and establishing himself as a top class striker.

Anelka spent just one season at Real Madrid, and played in the side that won the European Cup final, beating

Valencia 3-0. However, his form was remarkably worse than it had been at Arsenal – scoring only four goals in 29 appearances – and his inability to mix with his teammates (with the exception of good friend Steve McManaman) as well as to cope with media attention led to him leaving in the summer of 2000, to begin his second spell at Paris St-Germain for £20 million.

After one season at Paris St-Germain, Anelka returned to the English Premiership, signing a one-year loan deal with Liverpool. But he failed to hold down a regular first team place and manager Gerard Houllier decided not to offer him a permanent deal after the end of the season. Instead he opted to join newly promoted Manchester City and the £12 million fee paid by manager Kevin Keegan was a club record.
In his three seasons at Manchester City, although scoring freely, the addition of Anelka to the club's squad hardly made a drastic difference to its playing fortunes. They finished ninth in 2002-03, 16th in 2003-04 and midway through the 2004-05 season they were looking set for a mid-table finish at best. There was increasing speculation as to whether Anelka was going to be transferred to a bigger club.

On

January 27, 2005, the speculation ended when Manchester City announced that it had agreed to a fee (£7 million) for Anelka's transfer to Turkish team Fenerbahçe. Anelka helped the Turkish club win the league title in 2005. In August of that same year there was considerable speculation in the press that Anelka was being courted by Newcastle United for a return to English football although the transfer never came about. Anelka stayed on at the Turkish club where he played with them in the UEFA Champions League, but they finished bottom of their group. They also fell short in the title race in 2006 as rivals Galatasaray won the title on the season's final day.

During the summer transfer window of 2006, press reports once again linked Anelka with a return to English football. Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp was allegedly willing to either pay £8.2 million to bring the striker to Fratton Park, or take him on a season long loan. However, Bolton Wanderers swooped in and on August 25 2006, manager Sam Allardyce announced that he had signed Anelka on a four year deal for a club record of £8m. This brought his total combined transfer fees to approximately £69.8

International Career

At junior level, Anelka played for the French junior team in the 1997

FIFA World Youth Championship. Anelka had made his senior team debut for France in a goalless draw with Sweden on April 21, 1998 but was overlooked for the France 98. He was part of France's Euro 2000 and Confederations Cup 2001 squads. However, in 2002, he again was left out of the World Cup. After France's disastrous defense of their title in Japan & Korea manager Roger Lemerre was replaced by Jacques Santini. Anelka was not called up for international duty between 2002 and 2005, after a fallout with Santini, when he snubbed a call up for a friendly cause of an injury. However he enjoyed a revival of sorts, as Santini's replacement Raymond Domenech recalled him to the squad for a round of friendly fixtures in November 2005, culminating in him scoring his first international goal for over 3 years in a 3-2 win over Costa Rica on the island of Martinique. As of March 2006, he has won 31 caps for France, scoring seven goals.

He was not, however, selected for the World Cup Germany 2006 and even when Djibril Cissé was forced out of the tournament due to injury, Lyon's Sidney Govou was called up as Cissé's replacement rather than Anelka, who declared in response, "My absence is a real shame. I was completely available and ready to play in this World Cup. I think I could have helped France."

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