Jaidi Profile

By Mark Heys
May 21 2006

Radhi Jaidi

Born: Tunis, Tunisia, 30th August 1975

International Honours: Tunisia Full

Position: Centre Half

Squad Number: 15

Former Clubs: Esperance de Tunis (Tunisia)

Powerful defender who has made an instant impression in his short Bolton career. Jaidi came as a relatively unknown player from Esperance two years ago and has since become an important squad member.

At 29, he perhaps began his career in European football a little late, but it was better late than never as far as Bolton where concerned as he proved to be an excellent capture in the club's best ever Premiership season.

Sam Allardyce started the 2004-2005 season preferring Bruno N'Gotty and Julio Cesar as his central defensive pairing, but a loss at Fulham opened up an opportunity for Jaidi to stake a permanent place in the team.

He took his chance and began to perform admirably alongside N'Gotty up until an indifferent Christmas run, proving not just to be a good defensive source but also an excellent attacking weapon too.

He scored some important goals in the games against Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, which gave Bolton some very valuable Premiership points in the autumn.

Unfortunately, he seemed to be affected by the poor winter run and lost his place to the Israeli captain Tal Ben-Haim, thus meaning that his appearances for the rest of the season remained either infrequant or from the substitutes bench.

He returned to the starting line up on the final day of the 2004-2005 season against Everton and brought Bolton back into the game with a trademark header from an El-Hadji Diouf cross.

In summer 2005 it looked as if he could be on his way to Middlesbrough, but such speculations came to nothing and he remained faithful to the club which gave him his big break in Britain.

His second season in England proved to be much harder than the first and whilst he still posed a huge threat from set pieces his defensive blunders in the games against Fulham, Wigan and Middlesbrough proved to be costly and he was overlooked for the final month of the 2005-2006 campaign.

BOLTON RECORD: 43 appearances, 8 goals