English Premier League: Lucas says he wants to stay at Anfield
Lucas has stated his desire to stay at Liverpool, despite suffering from fan’s criticism after last season’s performances. Lucas plays for Liverpool currently in the middle of midfield. Liverpool’s fans were quite condemning of the Brazilian midfielder because of his below par displays in the previous league season.
Lucas, who is of Brazilian descent, started off his career as a professional footballer at Gremio in Brazil. During the 2006 season at Gremio, Lucas exceeded all expectations with his performances as Gremio won the Rio Grande do Sul state championship for the first time in over 5 years. They also finished third in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A. Lucas was awarded the Brazilian league’s golden ball award. He also became the youngest player ever to receive such a prestigious accolade.
Bola de Ouro also known as the Golden ball award was previously won by players such as Zico, Kaka, Tevez, Romario and Falcao. His performances in 2006 impressed several big name European clubs such as Chelsea, Real Madrid and Liverpool. However, Liverpool were Lucas’s favored destination. His transfer from Gremio to Liverpool in 2007 was worth six million pounds.
On signing Lucas from Gremio, Rafael Benitez who was Liverpool’s manager at that time stated that he was looking forward to watching Lucas score some goals for Liverpool. He also remarked that the Brazilian youngster had the ability to do well in the English Premier League.
Lucas’s crucial breakthrough season at Liverpool was supposed to be the 2008-2009 season. Before the start of the season, Lucas impressed in the pre-season friendly matches but he missed the start of the English league season because he was away with his national team Brazil on Olympic Games duty. Lucas came back from the Olympic Games with a bronze medal and found himself in a struggle to maintain his place in the starting lineup for Liverpool.
After a particularly lackluster display against Fulham in an English Premier League game, Lucas was jeered off the field by Liverpool’s fans. This prompted Benitez to defend the Brazilian player. The Spanish manager said that, people are still unaware of how good Lucas really is. In the 2008-2009 season, Lucas played only 39 games in all competitions for Liverpool. However, his actual chance came to establish himself at the club came when Xabi Alonso was sold to Real Madrid by Liverpool for thirty million pounds. In the 2009-2010 season, Lucas was expected to excel but he flattered to deceive. He was quite inconsistent with his performances and was rightly criticized by a large contingent of Liverpool fans as well as football pundits.
Recently, Roy Hodgson has been appointed as the new manager of Liverpool after Rafael Benitez parted ways with the club due to a bad series of results in the last year’s league campaign. Lucas has come out and stated that, he is happy at Liverpool at the present moment in time and is looking forward to the up-coming season. He also said that he was out to prove himself to the new manager and to his fellow team mates at Liverpool as well.
Lucas expressed his wishes to stay at Liverpool for the coming season and said that he will try and show the new Liverpool manager his true quality.
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