Everyone’s favourite Danish footballer after Peter Schmeichel, Brian Laudrup, Michael Laudrup, Jan Mølby, Daniel Agger, John Jensen, Christian Eriksen and basically any other Dane to have ever laced up a pair of football boots has this week come out to defend himself over allegations that he’s a lazy, self-serving waste of a wage.
Yes, Nicklas Bendtner has offered out anyone who wants to try and knock him down a peg or two so let’s take a look at Lord Bendtner in his own words, and on the pitch.
https://instagram.com/p/23r7aCA_hW
He told the Daily Mail during the 2010/11 season:
“If you ask me if I am one of the best strikers in the world, I say yes because I believe it. When I see that other strikers score a lot of goals, I realise I need to score those goals. But I think everything else in my game is right. Even if I believe I can still improve. But the goals are the last thing I need to add and when I do I believe I will be the player I want to be. One of the best.”
When speaking to Martin Keown for Football Focus in 2011, our man Nicklas said:
“I know that as soon as if it didn’t happen, people would be right there to stab you. That’s the way it works, but umm, I’m ready to take those punches if it comes.”
Well we’re four years on and my how the world has changed since Nick added those all-important goals to his game. This was in a season where he scored 9 goals in all competitions for Arsenal, beaten only by Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott, Samir Nasri, Andrei Arshavin and… err… Marouane Chamakh.
But he knew that he had to add those goals to his game to make him the undisputed best striker in the world so next season he really got his shooting boots on to stroke home 13 goals in all competitions on loan at Sunderland, whom he had decided to grace with his presence for the 2011/12 season.
Where next for Big Bendt on his whistle-stop tour of the world’s top clubs? Juventus? Okay! Wait… what?! How Juve ever came to sign Nicklas Bendtner is a mystery to everyone in the game but at least he tried his hardest and… no goal in all competitions?… oh, right.
Pretty poor return for the man people were now calling Lord Bendtner.
Of course, his return for Denmark is fairly impressive. 29 goals in 66 games for them. No doubt because the Danish National Team is willing to treat him like the incredibly special flower that he is.
From Juve he made his triumphant return to Arsenal. You might remember the ticker tape parade and the street parties which heralded his return from Turin, rather than the hazy memory I have of being in a pub one night being asked by a friend, “Is Nicklas Bendtner really still at Arsenal?!”
He was and in the 2013/14 season Nicklas secured his position in Gunners folklore by scoring 2 goals in 14 appearances, making 1 Premier League start, allegedly rubbing his testicles on Copenhagen taxi while shouting “If I wasn’t so famous I would smack you”, before finally leaving the club at the end of the season.
His renaissance began at Wolfsburg at the beginning of this season with Bendtner finally looking like he fitted in. Just kidding. He’s scored 7 goals in all competitions, including 2 in a 5-1 win over FK Krasnodar in the Europa League, started only 5 Bundesliga and looks set to be papped out with two years of his three year contract remaining after turning up late for training and missing a fan event.
Wolfsburg’s Supervisory Board chairman, Francisco Javier García Sanz, was quoted in the Guardian saying:
“He is what he is – and we knew that when we signed him. We have to weigh up how we take it forward and that is something the football people will look at. After the cup final we will sit down and plan for next season.”
Bye, Nick.
He is now 27 and the chances of him achieving anything of note in the game are decidedly slim. So there you go, Nicklas. We’ve written s**t about you and put you down using only the evidence of your performance on the football pitch, your own words and those of your superiors.
You’re welcome.
I think your criticism is a bit silly and selective. Tell us how many goals he has scored for the different teams compared to minute played. That changes things quite a bit but you seem more interested in making him look really bad. I’ve got zero respect for your article and I’m not even a fan of Bentner.
Totally agree. He was never given a chance with consecutive full games to show his worth. No one can perform their best when they play as little as he do. Bas Dost also scored more goals for Wolfsburg than Lewandowski did for Bayern, and Wolfsbrg only plays with 1 striker at a time.