BirthME, Doulas

All go follow this man Jim @JimBowentv — Kevin Phillips (@1KevinPhillips) December 22, 2015.

To have received the Golden Boot in the whole of Europe as well, it’s never been beaten [since, by an English striker], and I don’t think it ever will when you have the likes of Messi and Ronaldo and Neymar.“It goes under the radar and doesn’t really get mentioned, but within my household I’m certainly very proud of it!”While Phillips was not a big name when he made his Premier League debut, it’s fair to say that Sunderland expected big things of him.The diminutive striker had already plundered 60 goals in two glorious Championship seasons on Wearside – 35 in his first season and 25 in an injury-hit second – and his raw energy and enthusiasm had also reignited the career of strike partner Niall Quinn.Phillips, though, says he went into his debut top-flight campaign not knowing if he’d be able to cut it“I was feeling quite apprehensive, quite nervous, because although I’d scored a lot of goals going into the Premier League, it’s a big step up from the Championship.“You’re pitting your wits against some of the very best, not just in Europe, but in the world. Jamie Vardy has won the 2019-20 Premier League Golden Boot after scoring 23 goals ... with the division's top scorer award after notching 22 goals in the league . Where is Kevin Phillips now? A prolific striker at every club he played for, Kevin Phillips finally retired from playing at the age of 40 after winning the Championship and promotion to the Premier League at the end of the 2013-14 season with Lei cester City..

That season, I managed to take a fair few.“I think the biggest thing was wondering if we’d create enough opportunities in the Premier League.“I’ve never ever doubted my own confidence, my self-belief, but when it’s a big jump and you’ve only had a couple of years in the Championship it was a big step.”An opening day 4-0 walloping at the hands of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge certainly didn’t help matters. 20 years since Kevin Phillips won the Premier League Golden Boot for Sunderland ... Sunderland’s marksman went into that season having scored 60 goals in … I always think that if you have two strikers on the pitch you have double the chance of scoring.“I’d love to see it come back. ... and Kevin Phillips. Man City pay for Pep's terrible tactics I wouldn’t say I missed loads, but I would’ve missed a fair few.“The biggest thing is that when you’re part of a team that’s full of confidence, which we were in my first two seasons, you knew that if I missed one (chance) there’d be another one coming along very shortly.“So you never got anxious, you never snatched at the first one, you just knew that you could be relaxed and if you missed it didn’t matter – I’d get another chance in the next 10 minutes.“But the Premier League is a different ball game. “But let’s put it this way: If an English player scored 30 goals now, they’d get themselves a massive move and be on God-knows what. You still need to have the faith in your own ability and the confidence, the composure to actually finish.“But your striker partner can do a lot towards that, can create an awful lot of opportunities, create a lot of diversions trying to pull someone out of their position for me to run into, flicking it on…“It was one of those partnerships that just happened. You generally only get one or two opportunities in a game and really you need to try and take one. With his knees starting to feel the strain, Quinn was looking at a quiet end to his career in Malaysia before being persuaded by Peter Reid to become Sunderland’s record signing after City’s relegation.Quinn cost twice as much as Phillips did, and arrived a year earlier, but a serious injury early in his Sunderland career had him contemplating retirement, such was his disillusionment with the game.Remarkable, then, that a partnership that would eventually come to define his career was still to come – and Phillips is right at the head of the queue for making sure Quinn gets his share of the credit.“I’d be lying if I said he didn’t have a major influence,” Phillips says.“You ask Quinny, you ask any striker, no matter how much a partner does for you, at the end of the day the hardest part is putting the ball in the back of the net.

In … Sport > Football > Premier League The art of finishing: Kevin Phillips on learning from Lineker, teaching Vardy and why precision beats power.

Alan Shearer – 34 (1994/95)* A third appearance on our list for the Premier League’s all-time record goalscorer, in a season which saw him fire Blackburn to the league …

All Peter Reid would ever say was just: ‘Work off Quinny, get around Quinny’.“His legs weren’t what they were when he was younger so he wasn’t going to do the running that I could do, so it was just one of those that worked.“He occupied centre-halves while I just tried to nip in behind them when the ball was flicked on.“You’d have to say that as time went on, teams began to work that out and really shored it up against us, but in that first season they couldn’t live with us.Phillips was far from a one-season wonder, scoring 19 goals in his second Premier League season, but some who watched him say his game changed, possibly in pursuit of an England career.Alan Shearer very much ruled the roost for the national side around that time, and Kevin Keegan was looking for a Teddy Sheringham type to partner him.However, Phillips says he “didn’t deliberately” change his game.“I think I was doing it subconsciously, but sometimes it’s hard to get out of that,” he says.“The chances weren’t coming as well as they were before so naturally, and I see it now that I’m in the coaching side of football, when a striker isn’t getting as much of the ball they come searching for it.“You just want to try to get a touch.

Embed from Getty Images. It was a joy to be a part of.”Phillips has seen strike partnerships virtually disappear from the game since he finished playing and started out as a coach, but it’s something he would love to see more of.“When we were playing well and I was doing what I was doing, playing as a lone striker was unheard of,” he says.“I got asked to play it a few times and I was like: ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?