David Platt

David Andrew Platt (born 10 June 1966 in Oldham, Lancashire) is a former English footballer, who played as a midfielder and current coach. He began his career as an apprentice at Manchester United F.C.. Platt later moved to Crewe Alexandra where he began building a reputation as a goal scoring midfield player. In 1988, aged 22, he signed for Aston Villa where he continued his scoring rates.[vague] In 1989 he gained the attention of Sir Bobby Robson, the then England manager and made his debut. At the 1990 FIFA World Cup, Platt increased his continental reputation by scoring goals with both head and feet, whilst displaying passing abilities and high work rates. His performances in Italy earned him a move to Bari in 1991. In 1992 he moved to Juventus, where he spent one season. In 1993, he moved to Sampdoria where he stayed for two seasons before returning to England with Arsenal, taking the total amount of money spent on his transfer fees to £20 million. Platt played with the London club for three years before his retirement in 1998. Platt continued scoring goals for England, playing in Euro 92 and 96. Despite his efforts, England failed to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup. Afterwards, he returned to England as player-manager of Nottingham Forest. After expensive signings and failure on the field, he was sacked. Platt also served as manager of Sampdoria before leaving his post owing to poor results. Platt also managed the England Under-21 team. He is currently serving on Manchester City's coaching staff as first team coach.

Club career

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Early career

Platt signed for Manchester United as an apprentice on leaving school in 1982. He signed professional at the start of the 1984–85 season, but was given a free transfer in January 1985 as a result of a staff-cutting exercise by Ron Atkinson.

Dario Gradi then signed Platt for Crewe Alexandra in the Fourth Division. He quickly established himself as a strong-running, free-scoring midfielder. In 1988, he signed for Aston Villa, and in his first season at Villa Park he helped the club achieve promotion to theFirst Division, one season after they had been relegated.

He was a frequent goalscorer for Villa, and in 1989–90 took them to the brink of the league title. Although they had to settle for runners-up spot behind Liverpool, Platt was voted PFA Player of the Year.

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Italy

Meanwhile, his abilities as a footballer had in 1991 taken him from Aston Villa to Italy, where he successfully turned out for Bari,Juventus and Sampdoria, costing many millions of pounds in transfer fees. In Bari, Platt was the topscorer with 11 goals during his solitary season. The small Southern club had paid a British-record transfer fee to sign the Englishman, but the rest of squad was not good enough to play in Serie A, so Platt ended his first season in Italy relegated, the only time such a thing has happened to a British-record transfer player. He was then transferred to Juventus for £6.5million and helped them win the UEFA Cup before joining Sampdoria a year later for £5.2million and helping them win the Coppa Italia (Italian Cup) under Swede, Sven Göran Eriksson, who would manage the England team from 2001-2006 (by which time Platt had retired as a player).[1]

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Arsenal

Arsenal signed him for £4.3million on 10 July 1995, as one of the first signings by new manager Bruce Rioch. In his first season, Arsenal finished fifth in the league and qualified for theUEFA Cup, although Rioch was soon sacked following a dispute with the board and succeeded by Frenchman, Arsène Wenger.

He finally won English domestic honours in the game three years later as part of the squad which won both the FA Premier League and the FA Cup in 1997–98 season. Platt is most remembered for, in this season, was his 93rd minute header against Manchester United in November 1997, helping Arsenal to a 3–2 victory over their closest rivals and keeping Arsenal in the title race.

Early in the season, Arsenal accepted a £1.5million bid from relegated Middlesbrough for Platt, but the transfer never happened at Platt saw out the season at Highbury.[2]

Platt suddenly announced his retirement from football in the summer of 1998.

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International career

Platt was given his first England cap by Bobby Robson in a friendly against Italy in 1989, and was then included in the England squad when Robson named his 22 players for the 1990 World Cup.

Platt was on the bench for all of England's group games, but was sent on as an extra time substitute in the second round game against Belgium. He responded by scoring a memorable volley on the turn in the very last minute of extra time—his first goal for his country, and also the latest goal up until then (excluding deciding penalties) in World Cup history - sending England into the quarter finals.

With captain Bryan Robson suffering an injury, Platt started the next game—a quarter-final tie against Cameroon—as his replacement, and scored the opening goal in a 3–2 victory. He also appeared in the semi-final against West Germany which went to a penalty shootout after finishing 1–1. Platt had a goal disallowed in extra time, and scored England's third penalty, but the next two were not converted and England went out of the tournament. Platt ended the competition on a personal high by scoring his third goal of the finals in a 2–1 defeat by Italy in the third place play-off.

The post-tournament hype for team-mate Paul Gascoigne meant that Platt's own outstanding World Cup was not tainted or affected by massive media reaction.[citation needed] He quietly settled back into his captain's role at Villa and retained his starting place in the England team, now managed by Graham Taylor, his former manager at Villa.

Platt became England's most consistent performer of the early 1990s,[citation needed] scoring goals with frequency from midfield and proving an inspirational leader. He was captain for much of this period, though Tony Adams also skippered the side.

In the Euro 1992 tournament, England failed to win any of their group games and crashed out, with Platt scoring their only goal of the competition in a 2–1 defeat against Sweden. The squad then failed, despite Platt's continuing drive from midfield, to qualify for the 1994 World Cup and Taylor quit. His replacement, Terry Venables, kept Platt in his squads (indeed, Platt scored the first England goal in the Venables era) but by the time Euro 1996 came round, Platt had to settle for a place on the bench, with Paul Ince and Gascoigne getting the[citation needed] midfield roles and Adams the captaincy.

Platt appeared as a substitute in most of the Euro 1996 games, and started the quarter final against Spain as Ince was suspended. In the semi-final, he once again scored in a penalty shoot-out against Germany, but equally similarly, ended up on the losing side. Platt retired from international football soon afterwards, having been capped 62 times and scored 27 goals since his debut against Italy in 1989.

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Managing and media career

Within months of leaving Arsenal, Platt returned to Sampdoria as manager, a controversial stint which ended prematurely, with other clubs protesting that Platt did not have the appropriate coaching qualifications for managing in Serie A. Platt resigned before Sampdoria were relegated to Serie B.

In July 1999, Platt was appointed manager of Nottingham Forest, who had just been relegated from the Premier League. He actually made a playing comeback in the 1999–2000 season, playing three Division One games, and scoring once against Crystal Palace at the start of the following season.[3]

He was manager at the City Ground for two seasons, but had little success despite spending several million pounds on players who did not perform well and plunging the club into large sums of debt. Platt's tenure at Forest was marred by disagreements with several experienced, long-serving players, leading to them being isolated from the first-team picture and subsequently released by the club. He is still hugely unpopular with many Forest fans who blame him for the club's decline on and off the field during the 2000s, which culminated in relegation to the league's third tier four years after his departure.

Platt was appointed manager of the England U21 on 17 July 2001, which brought a little more success than his stint at Forest. He guided them to qualification for the U-21 European Championships in 2002. He left this role after failing to qualify for the 2004 tournament and was succeeded by Peter Taylor. Platt is now seen as a media pundit often for England U21 matches.

On 1 July 2010, Platt was hired as first team coach at Manchester City alongisde manager (and former teammate) Roberto Mancini, a decision that was not well received by many City fans because of his perceived anti-City stance as a pundit.[4]

He has previously written a regular column for FourFourTwo magazine, commenting on tactics.

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Career statistics

Club performanceLeagueCupLeague CupContinentalTotal SeasonClubLeagueAppsGoalsAppsGoalsAppsGoalsAppsGoalsAppsGoals EnglandLeagueFA CupLeague CupEuropeTotal ItalyLeagueCoppa ItaliaLeague CupEuropeTotal EnglandLeagueFA CupLeague CupEuropeTotal TotalEngland Italy Career total448150

1984–85	Crewe Alexandra	Fourth Division	22	5
1985–86			43	9
1986–87			43	22
1987–88			26	19
1987–88	Aston Villa	Second Division	11	5
1988–89		First Division	38	7
1989–90			37	19
1990–91			35	19
1991–92	Bari	Serie A	29	11
1992–93	Juventus	Serie A	16	3
1993–94	Sampdoria	Serie A	29	9
1994–95			26	8
1995–96	Arsenal	Premier League	29	6	1	0	2	0	–		32	6
1996–97			28	4	1	0	3	1	2	0	34	5
1997–98			31	3	4	0	4	1	2	0	41	4
1999–2000	Nottingham Forest	First Division	3	0	0	0	0	0	–		3	0
2000–01			2	1	0	0	2	0	–		4	1
348	119
100	31

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International goals

#DateVenueOpponentScoreResultCompetition

1.	26 June 1990	Stadio Renato Dall'Ara, Bologna, Italy	Belgium	1 – 0	1 – 0	1990 World Cup Round of 16
2	1 July 1990	Stadio San Paolo, Naples, Italy	Cameroon	1 – 0	3 – 2	1990 World Cup Quarter Final
3	7 July 1990	Stadio San Nicola, Bari, Italy	Italy	1 – 1	1 – 2	1990 World Cup Third Place Play-off
04	14 November 1990	Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland	Republic of Ireland	1 – 0	1 – 1	Euro 1992 qualifier
05	21 May 1991	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Soviet Union	2 – 1	3 – 1	1991 England Challenge Cup
06	21 May 1991	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Soviet Union	3 – 1	3 – 1	1991 England Challenge Cup
07	25 May 1991	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Argentina	2 – 0	2 – 2	1991 England Challenge Cup
08	17 May 1992	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Brazil	1 – 0	1 – 1	Friendly
09	3 June 1992	Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland	Finland	1 – 1	2 – 1	Friendly
10	3 June 1992	Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland	Finland	2 – 1	2 – 1	Friendly
11	17 June 1992	Råsunda Stadion, Stockholm, Sweden	Sweden	1 – 0	1 – 2	Euro 1992 First Round Group Stage
12	14 October 1992	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Norway	1 – 0	1 – 1	1994 World Cup qualifier
13	17 February 1993	Wembley Stadium, London, England	San Marino	1 – 0	6 – 0	1994 World Cup qualifier
14	17 February 1993	Wembley Stadium, London, England	San Marino	2 – 0	6 – 0	1994 World Cup qualifier
15	17 February 1993	Wembley Stadium, London, England	San Marino	3 – 0	6 – 0	1994 World Cup qualifier
16	17 February 1993	Wembley Stadium, London, England	San Marino	5 – 0	6 – 0	1994 World Cup qualifier
17	31 March 1993	Atatürk Olympic Stadium, İzmir, Turkey	Turkey	1 – 0	2 – 0	1994 World Cup qualifier
18	28 April 1993	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Netherlands	2 – 0	2 – 2	1994 World Cup qualifier
19	13 June 1993	RFK Stadium, Washington, D.C., United States	Brazil	1 – 0	1 – 1	1993 U.S. Cup
20	19 June 1993	Pontiac Silverdome, Detroit, United States	Germany	1 – 1	1 – 2	1993 U.S. Cup
21	9 March 1994	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Denmark	1 – 0	1 – 0	Friendly
22	17 May 1994	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Greece	3 – 0	5 – 0	Friendly
23	17 May 1994	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Greece	4 – 0	5 – 0	Friendly
24	16 November 1994	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Nigeria	1 – 0	1 – 0	Friendly
25	3 June 1995	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Japan	2 – 1	2 – 1	Friendly
26	8 June 1995	Elland Road, Leeds, England	Sweden	2 – 3	3 – 3	Friendly
27	18 May 1996	Wembley Stadium, London, England	Hungary	3 – 0	3 – 0	Friendly

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Honours

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Club

Crewe Alexandra

• Milk Cup: 1987

Juventus

• UEFA Cup: 1992–93

Sampdoria

• Coppa Italia: 1993-94

Arsenal

• Premier League: 1997–98
• FA Cup: 1997–98

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Managerial statistics

TeamNatFromToRecord GWLDWin %

Sampdoria		1998	1999	—	—	—	—	—
Nottingham Forest		July 1999	July 2001	103	37	41	25	35.92
England U-21		July 2001	2004	—	—	—	—	—