English Premier League - Player Profile: Kevin Davies
Kevin Cyril Davies currently plays his professional football at Bolton Wanderers F.C in the English Premier League, sometimes criticized by opposing managers to be quite aggressive in his approach on the field, Kevin has established himself as one of the best target men in the British Isles.
Kevin was born in Sheffield, which itself is located in south Yorkshire. During his days as a youthful school kid, Davies played his football with Sheffield United but he was released from the clubs youth academy at the age of 15. After departing from his town’s local club, he was given a trial at Chesterfield.
He did quite well during his trial and was taken up by the club. After several months in training with Chesterfield, Kevin broke through to the clubs first team. Davies became an integral part of the club’s 1997 F.A Cup side, which went till the semi-finals of the competition.
At Chesterfield, Kevin was usually employed as a wide midfielder, which meant that there was a lack of goals as far as the future marksman was concerned. During his the 1994-1995 season, he scored a total of 11 goals which allowed Chesterfield to gain promotion from third division of English football to the second division.
However, his last season which proved to be the 1995-1996 one, Davies only managed to score three goals from 34 games but due to his past performances Kevin quickly caught attention of several Premier League and Championship clubs.
In 1997, Southampton managed to secure Davies’s signature and the young English striker went onto score crucial nine goals for the Premier League club during his first season. Two of these goals came against Everton and Manchester United respectively. However, Southampton saw it fit to cash in on their asset and in the summer transfer window of 1998; he was sold to Blackburn Rovers for an astonishing fee of 7.5 million pounds.
Kevin failed to impress at Blackburn and only scored a single goal in 21 appearances for them. At the end of his first season at Rovers, Davies’s new club got relegated to the Championship from the English Premier League. Southampton saw this as an opportunity and signed back their star striker, as a part of the deal Egil Ostenstad was sold to Rovers.
Kevin was sent off in just his second come back match for Southampton after he had come on as a substitute against Liverpool. He struggled to make it to the first team squad at Southampton for the next three to four years and was usually used as an impact substitute.
In 2003, Bolton signed Kevin Davies after he was released from his contract by Southampton. Kevin soon rediscovered his old form and scored ten times in the first league campaign for the wanderers. He also started all of their league games. At the end of the 2003-2004 season, Davies won the club’s player of the year award.
Ever since his move to Bolton Wanderers, Kevin has been a regular in the starting lineup for the Premier League club, he has played for them in UEFA Cup, F.A Cup, the Carling Cup as well as the Premier League itself. He is also famous for committing more fouls than any other player in the Premier League over the past seven seasons.
In 2009, Kevin was made Bolton’s club captain after Kevin Nolan was sold by the club to Newcastle United. Kevin had an average 2009-2010 season during which he only managed to score eight goals in forty appearances.
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