Ryan Babel believes he has unfinished business in the Premier League following his move to Fulham.<\/p>\n
The former Liverpool winger, 32, failed to reach the dizzy heights expected of him during a four-year spell at Anfield between 2007 and 2011.<\/p>\n
Since leaving the Reds, his somewhat-mixed career has taken him to Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Spain and Turkey.<\/p>\n
Now, he is a regular in Ronald Koeman\u2019s resurgent Holland squad having rejuvenated his career at Besiktas.<\/p>\n
And Babel, who joined the Cottagers on a short-term deal, has offered an explanation for his previous shortcomings in England.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve done so much in my career but a little part of me feels I still have unfinished business here in the Premier League,\u201d he told The Guardian.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it is a good challenge and I want to take this chance to see how I do now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said in earlier interviews maybe I should have stayed one or two more years in Holland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to develop well and \u2013 as they promised me back then before I joined \u2013 just to be given the guidance I needed to become a better player.<\/p>\n
“That didn\u2019t happen and for a lot of different reasons I didn\u2019t fulfil my potential I guess.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had been living with my parents so it was the first time living abroad and by myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are lot of things coming at you at the same time \u2013 different country, different culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re basically by yourself and you have to make sure you deal with it as good as possible. That wasn\u2019t always the case [with me].\u201d<\/p>\n
All things considered, Babel\u2019s Liverpool spell was far from terrible – he scored 22 goals in almost 150 appearances after joining from Ajax at the age of 20.<\/p>\n
However, controversy often appears to follow the Dutchman around.<\/p>\n
In 2011, he posted an image of referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt on Twitter, and in 2015 he shared an angry message criticising his own fans at UAE side Al Ain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of things that bothered me, that were written about me, like my mentality was not supposed to be good,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was young and I did a lot of things besides football, whether it was being involved a little with music.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen they took that part way out of proportion, that I was being more busy with music than with football.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ryan Babel believes he has unfinished business in the Premier League following his move to Fulham. The former Liverpool winger, 32, failed to reach the dizzy heights expected of him during a four-year spell at Anfield between 2007 and 2011. Since leaving the Reds, his somewhat-mixed career has taken him to Germany, the United Arab…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}