Player Profile - Loic Remy
Roy Hodgson has taken his position in the hot seat as the manager of Liverpool and his first transfer dealing of the season was to offload his star Israeli winger, 30 year old Yossi Benayoun to chelsea. Not the best transfer deal you will ever come across but he can’t be blamed for that as it was the pressure from the board that he had to sell before he could buy anyone in the market. So Off went Benayoun and the former Fulham manager is also struggling to keep hold of his most priced assets. Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano are all linked with a move away from the Kop and the matters are not entirely in Hodgson’s own hands.
Yet he has his own way of dealing with things and he does not need abundance of talent or superstars to assemble a successful side, we all know what he converted a bunch of no hopers, the world knew as Fulham into.
He did not have any marquee names in his side and yet he managed to reach the final of the Europa league last season only to be beaten by Deigo Forlan’s Atletico Madrid. He revived the careers of the players like Damien Duff and Danny Murphy while his dealings in the transfer market were very astute. He brought Brede Hangeland from FC Copenhagen for a paltry sum of money and turned him into a world class holding midfielder.
At Liverpool though his task is not an easy one, at Fulham he had an all trusting boss in Muhammed Al-Fayed but here he has a distrusting board who will not be too kind on the manager if he falls short of expectations.
The first signing that Hodgson is bringing in the club is OG Nice’s Loic Remy who can play anywhere in the attacking third but prefers the role of a lone striker.
Remy is a player of Martiniquais descent who was born on the 1st of January 1987 in the city of Lyon. Loic Remy started his career playing for a local side ASPTT Lyon and joined the Olympique Lyonnais youth ranks after his pace, elegant runs up the channels and finishing led him to being compared with France Legend Thierry Henry.
He signed his first professional contract with Lyon on the 11th of October 2006 and made his first team debut just three days later from the subs bench against St-Etienne.
He scored his first professional goal against Caen on the 9 of February 2008 but he was wearing a Lens shirt when he scored that goal. He scored four times in 12 outings while on a sixth moan loan during the second half of the 2007-08 season but despite his impressive performances the club did not take the purchase option at the end of the loan.
His first professional goal came on 9 February 2008 against Caen - wearing a Lens shirt. He scored four times during his 12 appearances while on a six month loan for the second half of the 2007-08 season, but the club did not take up a purchase option in the loan deal.
Remy was instead signed up by OG Nice in June 2008 for a fee believed to be in the region of 8 million Euros, the fee was then the highest ever paid by Nice for a player transfer.
In 63 appearances for the club Remy has scored 24 goals at an average of 0.38 goals per game and last season he scored 14 goals and claimed 3 assists while making 34 appearances.
Remy was called up for national duty after appearing only for 3 times for the French U-21 side in March 2008 when an injury to Thierry Henry handed him his international debut for France A side against Mali.
But for his full senior debut he had to wait for more than a year after that game when he came on as a sub against Nigeria in June 2009..
Remy has so far scored 30 goals in 96 club appearances and is a disciplined player unlike other strikers of his age. So far in his career he has only seen a yellow four times and a red once.
Remy has often been labelled as the new Thierry Henry as he has the ability to play as a striker and can also play on the wings. Unlike Henry when he arrived in England he has no playing experience of playing outside the French Ligue1 and can prove to be a costly gamble for Hodgson if he fails to deliver.
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