David Nugent

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David Nugent
Personal information
Full name	David Nugent
Date of birth	May 2, 1985 (age 21)
Place of birth	Huyton, Knowsley, England
Height	5'11" / 1.80 m
Nickname	Nugget, Nuge, DaNuge, DaNug
Playing position	Forward
Club information
Current club	Preston North End
Number	10
Youth clubs
2000-2002	Bury
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
2002-2005 2005-	Bury Preston North End	88 (18) 86 (32)
National team2
2007-	England	1 0(1)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 21:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC). 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 20:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC). * Appearances (Goals)

David Nugent (born 2 May 1985 in Huyton, Knowsley, Merseyside) is an English footballer, currently playing for Coca-Cola Championship side Preston North End as a striker. He lives on the Wirral.

On March 28th 2007, Nugent made his debut for England in a Euro 2008 qualifying match against Andorra in Barcelona, thus becoming the first Preston North End player to play for the national team since Tom Finney some fifty years previously. Simultaneously, Nugent became the first England national team footballer from a club playing outside of football's top flight since Steve Bull of Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1990. Nugent scored England's third goal in the 3-0 victory over Andorra, in the ninetieth minute of play.

Contents 1 Domestic career 1.1 Transfer speculation 2 International career 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Domestic career

As a youngster Nugent was released from the Liverpool academy as they described him as 'not good enough' ^[1]. His junior career got back on track at Bury, joining the club's successful Youth and Centre of Excellence department. After making his debut as a substitute against Port Vale in March 2002 at the age of just 16, Nugent initially struggled to live up to his early potential, but an explosive start to the 2004-05 season saw several larger clubs take an interest.

Although a target for rivals Burnley FC, Nugent opted to join Preston rather than Northampton Town from Bury in January 2005 for a fee of £100,000 and has proved himself more than worthy at Championship level, with a reputed interest from a number of Premiership clubs.

Preston did not reach the Premiership, losing to Leeds United in the playoff semi-final. Rumours were rife that Everton would again try to make a move for Nugent in the summer.^{[citation needed]} So far nothing has come about of this transfer and Nugent has stated that he would like to take Preston into the top flight via automatic means by scoring at least 20 goals^{[citation needed]} for Preston next season. This news suggests that Nugent may stay with North End for at least one more season.

[edit] Transfer speculation

Nugent's success in English football's second tier has seen him the centre of numerous reports of transfer activity.

Nugent had reportedly handed in a transfer request on 29 August 2006 when he learned of interest from Portsmouth.^{[citation needed]} It was rejected by the club, and Pompey went on to sign another striker, Andrew Cole, from Manchester City. In the January 2007 Sheffield United made a club-record £6m bid for Nugent, but it was rejected.^[2]

Transfer speculation once again surfaced in January 2007, when it was reported that Fulham, and once again Everton, were interested in purchasing the striker. Despite the interest David Nugent insisted that he is happy to stay at the Championship club. It was also noted that Ken Bates had refused transfer funds for Kevin Blackwell to bring him to Leeds United.

On March 7th 2007 it was rumoured in the Daily Record that Rangers manager Walter Smith will bid £5million in the summer to try to bring Nugent to Ibrox. ^[3]

An avid Everton fan^[4], Nugent makes no secret of the fact he would like to play at Everton one day, but during the last transfer window (January 2006) a hotly-tipped bid from former Preston manager David Moyes now of Everton, failed to materialise. In 2007 he was quoted in an interview with The Independent as saying "Everyone knows I'm an Everton fan. My hero was Duncan Ferguson and, hopefully, I will play for them in my career and I'm confident I will do. I used to wear my Everton top underneath my Liverpool training top, I hated wearing red at the time, but they gave me my chance to play at the School of Excellence and it was great there".^[5]

[edit] International career

Although he opted to represent England, Nugent was also eligible to play for the Republic of Ireland.

He made his debut for England U21s against Wales in February 2005. He scored his first goal for the team in his fourth match, in the 2-2 draw with Moldova on August 15, 2006. Teamed up front again with Arsenal's Theo Walcott, he scored his second goal for England U21s in the 3-2 win over Switzerland on September 6, 2006 that advanced the team into the play-off round of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship. He scored his third goal for the U21s against Spain on 6 February 2007 in a 2-2 draw, Stuart Pearce's first game as coach.

On 19 March 2007, following much speculation after Steve McClaren confirmed he had been watching Nugent, David was called into the full England squad to replace the injured Darren Bent of Charlton Athletic.

As stated above, Nugent made his full England debut on March 28th 2007 against Andorra, marking the occasion with a tap in goal on the goal-line after a Jermaine Defoe effort.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• David Nugent career stats at Soccerbase

Preston North End F.C. - Current Squad
1 Lonergan | 2 Alexander | 3 Davidson | 4 Pugh | 5 Mawene | 7 Sedgwick | 8 Ricketts | 9 Agyemang | 10 Nugent | 11 Dichio | 12 St Ledger | 13 Henderson | 14 Chilvers | 15 Whaley | 16 McKenna | 17 Ormerod | 18 Hill | 20 Pergl | 23 L. Neal | 24 Anyinsah | 25 Nowland | 27 Soley | 28 Wilson | 30 C. Neal | 32 Parillon | 33 Mellor | 34 McGrail | Manager: Simpson