From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Francis "Franny" Jeffers (born January 25, 1981 in Liverpool) is an English football player currently playing for Ipswich Town on loan from Blackburn Rovers.

A striker, Jeffers began his career at Everton, making his debut in 1998 at the age of 17. Showing a lot of early promise and talent, he scored 20 goals in 60 matches for the Toffees. His performances caught the eye of Arsène Wenger, who signed him for Arsenal in 2001 for a fee over £8m. However, Jeffers did not live up to the "fox in the box" tag, and his time at Arsenal was dogged by injury and poor form.

He returned to Everton for 2003-04 on loan, but only scored once in 18 appearances for his side, before falling out with manager David Moyes and prematurely returning to London. He was sold for £2.6m to Charlton in the summer of 2004. In 2004-05 he scored 5 goals in 24 matches.

He joined Rangers on loan on August 31, 2005 for six months but returned in December after his performances failed to live up to expectation.

He has one cap for England, scoring on his debut, a consolatory goal in a defeat at the hands of Australia in 2003. Jeffers is also the joint all-time leading scorer for England Under-21s with 13 goals, a record he shares with Alan Shearer.

Charlton manager Alan Curbishley announced Jeffers would leave the club after his contract expired in the summer of 2006. He had been linked with moves to Bolton Wanderers, Championship side Coventry City, and even a return to Goodison Park for Everton.

Initially, Coventry City looked favourites to get his signature.^{[citation needed]} However, on 30 June 2006 it surfaced that Blackburn stopped Jeffers finalising his move by offering him Premiership football, after the loss of Paul Dickov and Craig Bellamy, a move that left City fans reeling. He has only played a small part in Blackburn's season - making a number of substitute appearances, with one goal to his name - a penalty.

He completed his transfer to Blackburn on 3 July 2006, signing a two-year contract. [1].

Has joined Championship side Ipswich Town on a one month loan deal on 2 March 2007, scoring his first goal for Ipswich on his full debut away at Hull City. In this match he also received the man of the match award for scoring and setting up a goal. Ipswich went on to win the game 5-2. He returned to Blackburn after suffering a hamstring injury against Southend United F.C., but having made a surprisingly quick recovery, he was allowed to return to Ipswich on loan until the end of the 2006/07 season.

• FootballDatabase provides Francis Jeffers's profile and stats
• Francis Jeffers career stats at Soccerbase