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Birthdate:
15.01.1983
Birthplace: Nottingham, England
Other clubs: Notts County, Arsenal; Watford, Leeds, Birmingham (all on loan), Birmingham, Portsmouth (on loan), Real Zaragoza
Bought from: Birmingham
Signed for LFC: £6700000 26.07.2006
International caps: 24 u-21 caps
Liverpool debut:
09.08.2006
Last appearance: 29.10.2008
Debut goal: 20.01.2007
Last goal: 19.04.2008
Contract expiry: 01.07.2009
LFC league games/goals: 55 / 3
Total LFC games/goals: 81 / 3
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Player Notes:
Pennant became the most expensive teenager in history when he signed for 2 million pounds from Notts County to Arsenal in January 1999. Arsene Wenger is a master at buying potiental and turning it into full-fledged professional footballers. Wenger couldn't though handle the rebellious Pennant who was discovering the bright lights of London. He only played 26 games for Arsenal despite a blistering start when he scored a hat-trick in his first league game vs. Southampton in May 2003. Those three goals turned out to be his only goals for the club.
Pennant was shipped out to other clubs and finally Birmingham was impressed enough to pay 3 million pounds for him on 1st of July 2005. He had been on loan at Birmingham since January 2005 and during this time he turned in some impressive performances, but also served 30 days in jail for driving under the influence with a suspended license!
Rafa decided to gamble on Pennant as he is still young and might be mature enough to star for his boyhood favourites. Pennant grew stronger as his debut season for the Reds progressed, but there is still room for improvement in terms of number of assists and goalscoring. He scored only one goal, though it was a tremendous one vs. Chelsea in 2-0 league victory. A player of tremendous potiental who will hopefully show his bag of tricks in the coming seasons.
Jermaine had finished the 2006-07 season strongly and deserved his place in Liverpool's Champions League final team. He started the next season in similar form, being picked from the start for the opening 8 League matches. However, he was needlessly sent off in the first Champions League group game in Porto and this lack of discipline and display of petulance almost certainly contributed to him losing his place in the first team. He didn't play again in the League until the 2nd of January, 2008 but made a further 15 appearances before the season ended, with an especially impressive performance coming at one of his old clubs, Birmingham City, where his trickery on the right-wing helped turn a two-goal deficit into an unlikely draw. Jermaine was not a regular scorer at any of his previous clubs and nor has he been so far at Liverpool. An extremely fortunate ricochet against Newcastle and a nicely-taken goal at Fulham were his only contributions to the team's goals for column and this is possibly the main aspect of his game that needs to be improved.
Once the 2008-09 season got under way, it became clear that Jermaine was not likely to figure much in the manager's plans. He started only three matches in the first half of the season, with one more brief appearance coming as a substitute in the Goodison derby with Everton at the end of September. So it wasn't a major surprise when on the 20th of January, 2009 the winger was loaned to Portsmouth for the remainder of the season. Ironically, his final appearance for Liverpool before this loan move had come against Portsmouth at Anfield on the 29th of October.
Pennant became a free agent on the opening day of July 2009 and 8 days later it was announced that he had passed a medical with Spanish club Real Zaragosa, who had just been promoted back to Spain's top division. |
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