Tag: Di Santo

The former Chelsea player Franco di Santo joined the German side Werder Bremen 4 months ago and has made 6 appearances so far with them scoring his debut goal in the Bundesliga during Werder Bremen’s 3-2 defeat against Mainz.

Arriving from the club he stayed and played in for 3 years, Wigan Athletic in which he made a large amount of first team appearances for the relegated Premier League club, his impact on the team was almost non-existent as he bagged 16 goals in 3 seasons.

After 45 minutes of the 2^nd half the 24 years old Argentinean forward netted the 2^nd goal for Werder Bremen and despite the late goal from him, his side ultimately had to settle to their defeat against Mainz as they keep on dropping points and getting into the lower spots of the standings.

Werder Bremen received Bayern Munich at the Weserstadion in order to play the 15^th match of the Bundesliga but faced a disappointing 7-0 final result and now if the team of Robin Dutt wants to continue playing in the top flight league of Germany, a number of changes will be needed for them to avoid further negative results.

The general manager of Werder Bremen, Thomas Eichin confirmed their interest regarding Kevin de Bruyne.

‘’Kevin de Bruyne’s player agent is aware of our interest in his services. I will be getting to know if there is a chance to re-sign Kevin de Bruyne on loan for our club. If this is possible, we will have to wait and see if such a deal can be really worked out. Everyone at Werder Bremen knows all about the quality of Kevin de Bruyne’’. Thomas Eichin told Sky Sports.

Werder Bremen have been on a poor form in recent weeks in the Bundesliga, but they showed signs of recovery after managing a 3-2 win over Hannover 96 in the league. After the match, Werder Bremen manager Robin Dutt revealed that he is happy to have secured this important victory, which moves the club closer to the top half of the table. Bremen had not won in front of their home fans for the last four matches, which has been causing signs of discontent amongst the supporters.

There were expecting the worst when Hannover took the lead in the 20th minute through a penalty from Huszti, but a penalty from Hunt helped the home team get back on level terms after just five minutes. The 40th minute goal from Makiadi appeared to take them into the half-time break with the lead, but Hannover’s Sakai had other ideas, as he equalised after just a minute to send both teams level at half-time.

It stayed that way almost till the end of the match. It looked like Werder Bremen were going to drop more points at home, but Garcia stepped up to score the winner in the 89th minute to send the home fans crazy. Hannover were disappointed with the result especially given that they are targeting European qualification.

“Of course when you are under pressure to show your fans what you can do, and you keep getting draws, then it’s a huge weight off your shoulders to win. You can see that because it’s so much fun to work with this team when you then win. They work so much during the week, really pulling along, and we’ve got an excellent team spirit,” said Dutt. “We’ve got to take our chances better. It’s bitter to get punished so late on and this is a very frustrating defeat,” said Slomka.

Former Chelsea striker Franco di Santo has signed for German club Werder Bremen on a free transfer after leaving Wigan athletic at the end of last season. This move brings an end to the spell in English football for the striker, who came as a youngster to Chelsea. He was signed for £ 3 million from Chelsea by the manager Roberto Martinez. The past few years has been extremely productive for the Argentine, as he has even been able to make his debut at the international level as well. The Argentine striker, though, did not want to play in the Championship.

Hence, he did not renew his contract with Wigan, who were relegated into the second division of English football last season. After searching for a new club in the last few weeks, the 24-year-old has decided to sign for Bundesliga club Werder Bremen. He made 92 league appearances during his time in England and he scored 13 goals. The Bundesliga club’s general manager, Thomas Eichin has said that the club had been searching for a hard-working striker, who could hold the ball up. He hopes that Di Santo proves to be the perfect signing that the club was looking for in this transfer window.

Prior to moving to England, Di Santo played for Audax Italiano.

“We had been in the hunt for a robust striker with experience in a big league. We are very confident that we have found a good solution in Franco Di Santo. He is experienced but still possesses enough potential for development in order to make a great leap forwards,” said Eichin. “Werder have a very good name and the Bundesliga is a very attractive league. I want to show what I am capable of here,” said the striker to the official site of Werder Bremen.

The Wigan manager Roberto Martinez has said that he believes that the striker Franco di Santo has finally matured as a footballer. The Argentine arrived in English football as an 18-year-old striker and Chelsea had paid around £ 3.5 million to secure his services many years ago. However, he never managed to establish himself at Stamford Bridge. This led to a succession of loan spells at different clubs including Blackburn Rovers, but he finally managed to secure a permanent move to Wigan recently. The £ 2 million move to Wigan just under three years ago has transformed the player according to the Wigan manager.

The 23-year-old has come a long way since being a reserve team player at Stamford Bridge, as he recently made his debut for the Argentine national team. Many were surprised when Martinez claimed more than a year ago that di Santo is capable of playing for Argentina. However, the manager is not surprised that he made such a comment because he knew that di Santo will come of age eventually. Martinez feels that the striker has definitely learnt that he had to get out of Chelsea in order to progress in his career. The regular game time at the DW stadium has been one of the main reasons for this development according to Martinez.

“He’s two different players. The one he was at Chelsea, a young man full of dreams. Now he is a man living his dream. When he arrived at Chelsea, he was a young man with the world at his feet and he had to grow up quickly. In football, you need to play games to do that. I think Franco’s experience at Chelsea has made him the man he is now. Now he’s a completely different footballer, after the experiences he had with Blackburn and ourselves,” said Martinez.

The Wigan athletic manager Roberto Martinez has said that he is extremely confident that the club will not be forced into selling the star assets like Franco di Santo, who is out of contract in the summer. The former Chelsea striker joined the club for a relatively low transfer fee, but he has improved hugely under the guidance of the manager Roberto Martinez. This has even led to the call-up to the Argentine national team in the recent friendly match against Saudi Arabia. As a result, he has been linked with many big clubs in Europe.

Martinez, though, has said that he hopes that the striker signs new contract with Wigan and does not get carried away with all the hype surrounding the international call-up. Martinez has also revealed that he has spoken with the player about the possibility of signing a new contract. He is also confident that the club will be able to refrain from selling him during the January transfer window. There is a suggestion that Wigan will be tempted into selling him rather than lose him for nothing in the January window. The club has already lost the services of the Nigerian winger Victor Moses during the summer. Moses was extremely crucial in getting them out of relegation trouble last season.

“It’s not going to be a financial decision. I can guarantee that we’re not going to try and cash in early. We showed last season that if we feel a player can give us something we’ll keep him, even if he can walk on a free. To replace a player who can score 10 or 15 goals in the Premier League you’ve got to talk about £10million, so if you haven’t got that sort of figure it would be foolish for us just to try and get a bit of money,” said Martinez.

Franco Di Santo has said that the upcoming season is not going to be easy for Wigan Athletic. Wigan had performed brilliantly towards the end of the last season and defeated some big teams such as Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool. As per Santo, it would be quite difficult for the team to put up the same kind of performance again. Santo said that in the last season, the teams took Wigan lightly and Wigan was able to surprise them. But, in the upcoming season, the teams would be keen to take their revenge and the Wigan players would have to play out of their skins to defeat the big teams again.

Santo has been playing for Wigan since the last 2 seasons. He had joined Wigan in August 2010. Wigan bought him from Chelsea after paying a transfer fee of 2 million pounds. He played his first match for Wigan in September 2010 against Sunderland. His first goal for Wigan was also against Sunderland in the later part of the 2010-11 season. He made a very good start to the last season by scoring twice in a match against Queens Park Rangers. He scored goals in some very important matches in the last season including the match against Newcastle United which Wigan had won by 4-0. On being asked about his targets in the upcoming season, Santo said that he would like to continue his good form. The last season was very good for him.  He played well in almost every match and he rarely made mistakes on the field in the last season and he would like to do the same in this season as well.

On being asked about Wigan’s squad for the upcoming season, Santo said that there are some good strikers in the team including Arouna Kone and Victor Moses and the team is good in the defense as well. Hopefully, the team would be able to perform well again.