page_title: Nicolas Anelka
section_title: Shanghai Shenhua
hierarchical_section_title: Nicolas Anelka / Club career / Shanghai Shenhua
caption_attribution_description: English: Didier Drogba, Giovanni Moreno and Nicolas Anelka played for Shanghai Shenhua against Guangzhou Evergrande
context_page_description: Nicolas Sébastien Anelka is a French professional football manager and former player who played as a forward. As a player, he regularly featured in his country's national team, often scoring at crucial moments. Known for his ability to both score and assist goals, he has been described as a classy and quick player, with good aerial ability, technique, shooting, and movement off the ball, and was capable of playing both as a main striker and as a second striker.
  Anelka began his career at Paris Saint-Germain, but soon moved to Arsenal. He became a first team regular and won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award the following season. He moved to Real Madrid for £22.3 million in 1999, but did not settle in well and returned to PSG in a £20 million deal. Despite regular first team football in Paris, Anelka set his eyes upon the Premier League once more, moving on loan to Liverpool in January 2002, but joining Manchester City for £13 million at the start of the 2002–03 season.
  After three seasons in Manchester, he moved to Fenerbahçe for two seasons, before returning to England to join Bolton Wanderers in deals worth £7 million and £8 million respectively.
context_section_description: On 1 January 2012, Anelka moved to Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua, with his annual salary reported to be around €12 million. Following his move, Anelka revealed he turned down the chance to join his former club PSG the previous month in favour of signing for Shanghai Shenhua, and explained that his move was because he did not have attractive offers to remain within Europe. On 21 February 2012, he scored his debut goal in a pre-season friendly match against Hunan Billows, just 40 seconds after the start of the match. Anelka failed to make his Chinese Super League (CSL) debut due to ankle injury on the opening league match of the season against Jiangsu Sainty. He eventually made his CSL debut and scored his first CSL goal on 16 March 2012, in a 3–2 away defeat against bitter rivals Beijing Guoan. On 11 April 2012, Anelka was named as part of the coaching staff to help struggling manager Jean Tigana.
  On 19 June 2012, it was confirmed that Anelka's former Chelsea teammate Didier Drogba would join Shanghai Shenhua. On 7 June 2012, it was claimed Anelka was keen on a move back to the Premier League after he was involved in a heated exchange with a fan for refusing to bow in front of the travelling Shenhua fans with his teammates. Anelka provided two assists for Drogba and headed in a late equalizer to earn Shenhua a point in a 3–3 draw with Shandong Luneng Taishan on 25 August.
caption: Anelka played with Giovanni Moreno and his former Chelsea teammate Didier Drogba at Shanghai Shenhua.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-H7", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2012:07:28 19:33:55", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-H7", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2012:07:28 19:33:55", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9376", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9066", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:07:28 19:33:55", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:07:28 19:33:55", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "78", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9170", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}