Cant post my comments on this article till after the derby, good read though.
Reborn Pennant ready to find fulfilment
Dominic Fifield
Saturday September 9, 2006
The Guardian
It may have fallen short of a truly cathartic moment, but Jermaine Pennant can pinpoint when he recognised he had been handed a second chance. He was gazing out of the window of a railway carriage, rural Cheshire skimming past in a blur, and the reflection staring back at him was soon to be that of a Liverpool player. "A lot of things went through my head on that journey," he recalled. "I thought about what lay ahead and the opportunity I had. I knew it was on my shoulders now."
Merseyside is witnessing the rebirth of an England contender. Pennant was travelling to Melwood on that July afternoon for a medical, a fee of £6.7m having been agreed with recently relegated Birmingham City to restore the winger not only to the Premiership but to a club expected to challenge. At Goodison Park this lunchtime, the home supporters will be all too quick to remind the No16 careering up and down the visitors' right flank of where he's been. Yet it is where he could now be going which will keep Pennant's mind fully focused.
First glance would suggest his is a story of unfulfilled potential, of a youngster who buckled under the crippling weight of colossal expectation, with that pressure prompting frustration and the propensity to self-destruct which ultimately saw him jailed for 30 days for drink-driving offences last year. The 23-year-old sees it differently. It is seven years since he swapped Notts County's junior set-up for Arsenal a week before his 16th birthday for an eye-catching £2m but, if Highbury only witnessed glimpses of his talent, he subsequently did enough in 19 months on the wing at Birmingham to return to one of the country's elite clubs.
Not many players have a chance to excel at two of the country's established top-four teams. "I know things didn't work out at Arsenal but then I went to Birmingham, and now I'm here, so I must have fulfilled some of the expectations along the way," he said, his upbeat mood briefly piqued.
"Liverpool don't buy average players or players they're not too sure about. They only buy great players, good players who they know can do a job. So, for them to buy me from Birmingham, I must have done something right.
"The expectation means nothing to me, actually. All I want to do is play football. I got that chance at Birmingham, playing week in, week out. I just want to do well for the club and for myself, to progress my career. Next stop, England. Obviously, Liverpool believe in my ability. A lot of other people do as well. To get another chance at another great club is brilliant. I'm going to give it my all and see where it goes."
It appears it could go far. Pennant's innate ability has never been in doubt. Arsène Wenger saw it in the teenager he watched score a breathtaking 11-minute hat-trick on his first Premiership start, against Southampton in May 2003. Yet, for all the youngster's genius on the pitch, his ill-discipline off it - whether it was curfew-breaking, poor time-keeping or the serious driving offence - eventually left his manager exasperated.
Loan spells at Leeds and Birmingham followed before City recruited him permanently. They offered him the real second chance, standing by him through his personal crisis, and the player recognises the part they played in his rejuvenation. Neither should his impact be ignored: Pennant was the Premiership's most prolific crosser last season.
Yet it was still with a certain glee that he returned to the dressing room at City's Wast Hills training complex between a double pre-season session this summer to find his mobile phone trilling. His agent, Sky Andrew, had confirmation of Liverpool's acceptable bid. "I just started jumping around the changing room with all my team-mates all really ****ed off because they had to go back out," he said. "The boss [Steve Bruce] pulled me, [the chief executive] Karen Brady too, and I had this big grin on my face as I thanked them for everything they'd done for me." His team-mates were rather more blunt. "David Dunn basically called me a jammy so-and-so. That's the polite version, anyway."
Pennant has offered balance, pace and bite to Liverpool's new offensive outlook, a side which was happiest in defensive suffocation last term now propelled down either flank by the exuberance of an English hopeful and the Chilean Mark González. Pennant has thrived. The England coach, Steve McClaren, watched his debut against Maccabi Haifa. He will have seen his excellent contributions in the wins against Chelsea and West Ham, and noted the fine cross converted by Peter Crouch in the return European tie in Kiev. The 204th Merseyside derby offers a tempestuous occasion in which to excel.
"The England manager might be watching regularly so, if I do perform, it's only going to benefit me and the side," he added. "If you're doing well playing at Liverpool, you can play anywhere, in any team, and I want to be a part of an international side. I know I'll get my chance to prove myself here. People wondered whether I'd get this second chance, but I knew I could play at a big club, on a big stage, and do well. I knew it would come eventually, but I just didn't know it would be with Liverpool.
"It's Rafael Benítez who's given me this opportunity. I played in the League Cup against Liverpool last season [the visitors won 7-0 at St Andrew's], not a good game but I can take the positives from it now. I did well that night - we did get battered - but maybe he looked at me and thought: 'That's a good attitude, there.' I've really taken to him now. He's a tactical genius, he helps you out on and off the pitch, talking to you. He doesn't just single out the star players or foreign players. He speaks to everyone, the whole team. It's like a big family.
"I'll definitely score more goals playing under him. He's always telling me to get in the box, track inside, things that other managers have told me not to do. He's added two wingers and now they've got that the balance is good, and the squad's brilliant." So, too, are the prospects of the youngster on the right flank. Expectation is growing again, and this time he may just take it in his stride.