Darren Barr Fletcher, who was born on 1 February 1984, is a familiar name for United fans in the last decade. In total, he played 342 games for the club and scored 18 goals in the league.
Eventually, Fletcher was brought into Scottish national team and has made his Scotland debut in 2003. He first captained Scotland on 26 May 2004, at a friendly game against Estonia in Tallinn. This made him as the youngest Scotland captain since Queen’s Park John Lambie who was only 17 years old when Lambie captained Scotland. Until now, Fletcher has won a total of 66 caps and scored 5 goals for Scotland.
Fletcher has always sparked debate in the football community during his career. For example his former role in the United’s team, the unexpected level of responsibility given to him by Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, or some questions over his career after his serious stomach illness in 2011. And now, after his move to West Brom, he once again has just raised one important question to West Brom fans everywhere: could he help his new team to successfully stave of relegation once again, or will he be the biggest gamble of the window?
“We know the challenge ahead of us this season and hopefully we can achieve that and look to push on next season and over the years.”
So whatever people’s opinion of him, the West Brom’s new no. 24 will surely bring lots of experience, know-how and leadership to the team in the remainder of the season. He was marked by the media as the former manager Ferguson’s final signing during his career. However, just two years from joining United side, he made permanent move to his old club Crystal Palace. The 22-year-old winger, who failed to impress his managers in the United team, spent three different loan spells with the Palace, Cardiff City and again Palace, before completing his permanent switch to Selhurst Park. He signed a five-and-a-half year contract at Palace for the reported initial transfer fee of £3 million. It is £7 million less than signing fee from Palace in January 2013. We will see his performance with the new club in English premiere League in the next soccer schedule (see: complete schedule on Jadwal Bola Malam Ini website)
“For me to be a better player I need to play more games and having a gaffer that, I know, has great trust in me gives me the confidence I need to help me improve my game.”
One last big name on the list is the central midfielder Anderson. He put an end to his unsuccessful career at United by moving to Brazilian club Internacional on a four-year contract for free. One year later, he won the Golden Boy award, as the most promising young footballer in Europe. He made an initial impact after joining United, by scoring a penalty in the 2008 Champions League final shootout victory over Chelsea and then playing in the Champions League final against Barcelona the next year. Before the completion of the deal, International president VitorioPiffero had told Brazilian media, “I’m sure he will be the Anderson that we all know.”