Alves targets Premier League Golden Boot
442 Staff - Tuesday 30 September 2008, 13:41
Middlesbrough striker Afonso Alves says he is targeting not only
the Premier League’s Golden Boot this season but also a Champions
League spot for the Teesiders.
The Brazilian, who has scored seven goals in 17 league appearances
since arriving at the Riverside in January 2008 - including two against
reigning champions Manchester United and a hat-trick against Manchester
City – is confident he can now light up the north-east in his first
full season under, manager, Gareth Southgate.
“I want to be the Premier League’s top scorer, and to help the club, along with my team-mates, get as
high as we can in the table. I’d be very happy with a Champions League
spot, and our team will fight for it,” he says in the November issue of FourFourTwo magazine, out on Wednesday.
And the former Malmo and Heerenveen forward, who joins a growing
list of strikers imported having scored prolifically in the Dutch
Eredivisie, is confident he can be more of a Ruud van Nistelrooy at
Manchester United than Mateja Kezman at Chelsea.
Alves bagged an incredible 34 goals in 31 games for Heerenveen in
the 2006/07 campaign, as well as netting seven in one match
against Heracles in 2007.
“I don’t like comparisons and I don’t think I’m better than Romario
or Ronaldo,” he adds, “but the fact is that, proportionally, I scored
more goals in Holland than them, and I played for a mid-table club.
“Despite that, we can’t rest on our achievements. As the Brazilian
saying goes, ‘we have to kill a lion a day’ to prove ourselves. I want
to repeat in England the success I enjoyed in Sweden and Holland, to
make Boro fans happy.”
You can read more from Afonso Alves in FourFourTwo.com's Web Exclusives. The full interview appears inside the new issue of FourFourTwo magazine, available on Wednesday.
LATEST ENGLISH FOOTBALL NEWS