Anders Svensson Finally Retires Monday, 2nd Nov 2015 14:06 It was over 14 years ago that the then 24 year old Anders Svensson joined Saints in June 2001, incredibly he has only retired this weekend. Older Saints fans will view Anders Svensson with a little mixed emotion, on his day he could be outstanding, but too often he struggled to adapt to the Premier League's demands both in terms of work rate and the physical strength increasingly needed. He arrived at St Mary's in June 2001, in fact that isn't strictly true in that Saints were yet to move into the new stadium they would kick off season 2001/02 in. Svensson came with a good reputation in his native Sweden having played for Elfsborg and prompting Saints to pay £700,000 for him. Over the next four seasons he would start 90 Premier League games for Saints with another 37 from the bench out of the 152 games he could have played in, which on reflection is a lot more of a contribution than my memory recalls, also scoring 10 goals in the process, which given his ability was a lot less than he should have registered. His best season was undoubtedly 2002/03 when he was a regular in Gordon Strachan's side and a stalwart in the cup run of that season, scoring in the 3rd round 4-0 win over Spurs, as well as the 5th round win over Norwich and playing in every game including the final where he played for 75 minutes before being replaced by Jo Tessem as Gordon Strachan through everything forward in an attempt to force an equaliser. At the end of 2004/05 and the club having been relegated Svensson left after his contract had ended and returned to Elfsborg where he continued to play for another decade up until this weekend when he finally announced his retirement, playing his last game against Falkenburg on Saturday aged 39. Internationally Svensson is the highest capped Swedish player of all time with 148 caps, his last being in season 2013/14. He will be est remembered for scoring against Argentina for Sweden in the 2002 World Cup Finals in Japan, prompting the chant "Svensson knocked the Argies out" in the Northam End in the following season Good luck to Anders Svensson in retirement he made a good contribution to the club in his time here, although perhaps he never became the player he certainly had the talent to be. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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