English Premier League: Agbonlahor looks to impress Capello
After England’s disappointing World Cup campaign, there have been various calls to fire Fabio Capello. The Italian manager led England through their pre-World Cup qualification campaign with considerable ease but England faltered during the World Cup. The English national team only managed to score three goals during their World Cup matches.
England’s elimination for the 2010 FIFA World Cup resulted from their defeat to Germany in the round of sixteen tie between both the rivals. Now that the tournament has ended, focus is about to shift to league football. There has also been a lot of post-tournament pressure on Fabio Capello to disregard some of the old guard in English football and bring in some new blood, to freshen things up before England commence their Euro 2012 qualification campaign.
Gabriel Agbonlahor has been named as one of the few players which Capello will be looking to introduce into the England setup. Agbonlahor currently plays for the Birmingham club, Aston Villa who finished sixth in the Premier league last season.
Agbonlahor has impressed since his introduction into Villa’s first team. He is a product of the Aston Villa youth academy and earned his first team debut for Aston Villa on 18th of March, 2006 against Everton in an English premier league match, although Gabriel scored late on in the match near the 63rd minute, his team Aston Villa lost the match by four goals to nil.
Agbonlahor is known particularly for his pace which has been deemed as troubling for many of the defenders in the English Premier League. Agbonlahor also earned himself the players’ young player of the year award in the year 2006-2007 at his club Aston Villa, he repeated this feat in the following 2007-2008 season as well.
Capello’s call out to English football’s youth has stirred up Agbonlahor who, said that it was nice to hear What Fabio Capello said before the new season for Aston Villa on 14th August. Last season Agbonlahor scored 16 times for Aston Villa. His scoring record was better than two of the strikers that Capello took in his English squad to South Africa for the World Cup, those two strikers being Emile Heskey and Peter Crouch.
Heskey only scored 5 goals whereas, Crouch scored 13 times for his club Tottenham in the previous season. Agbonlahor also admitted that, now it is his own responsibility to prove himself to the English manager who is indeed looking for bright young English players to step into the National team setup. Gabriel Agbonlahor also said that he will be looking to start the season off brightly and force his way back into the English squad.
He also said that the players who were left out of the 23-man English national team squad for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, should look within themselves and ask themselves that why were they left out? Agbonlahor also said that this time around for Euro 2012, there will be tougher competition as young players from all across England will be looking to catch Capello’s eye but he said that he has been improving every season since 2006 and will continue to do so.
England start off their European Championship qualification campaign on 3rd of September, 2010 against Bulgaria at home, in the Wembley stadium.
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