James Beattie (born February 27, 1978 in Lancaster) is a current
football player for Everton, he joined the club in January 2005
from Southampton for a fee of £6m. He was brought to Southampton
as a young player from his hometown club Blackburn Rovers in
1998 as part of a deal that saw Kevin Davies move in the other
direction. Southampton got the better end of the deal as Beattie
went on to become one of the Premiership's top strikers.
A series of injuries meant he struggled to make an impact at
first with the Saints, but that all changed in November 2000
when he began an unbelievable goalscoring run.
After 18 months without a goal, he scored ten in ten games,
lifting Southampton into a good position and well positioned to
secure safety in the Premiership for next season.
However, his form dropped off after that and he scored only two
goals in the rest of the season.
Beattie went 17 games without scoring towards the end of the
2000/01 season and the start of the next campaign. But he was
awarded with a new four-year contract in March 2001.
Once again though, he found form but in the match against
Manchester United in January 2002, he fell heavily on his ankle
and looked as if he would be out for sometime. Happily though,
the injury was not too serious and he was back in two months. By
the end of the season he had scored an impressive 14 goals,
especially considering he had been out injured for two months.
Beattie finally earned a senior England cap against Australia in
February 2003 after a prolific period during the 2002/03 season.
Unfortunately, the game was not a success, with England losing
3-1. England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson was widely blamed for
the defeat due to his tactic of taking all 11 players off at
half time.
Beattie scored 24 goals that season, with 23 in the Premiership
- the top scoring Englishman - and one in the F.A. Cup - with
Saints losing in the final to Arsenal.
However, it was clear that Beattie didn't fit into Eriksson's
plans, and it seems unlikely he will play for England after the
friendly match against Denmark in November 2003. In that season
he scored a total of 14 goals, a slight disappointment afyter
his prolific goal tally the previous season. |
