Steven Howard Thompson (born 14 October 1978) is a Scottish former professional footballer, and current television pundit who played for Dundee United, Rangers, Cardiff City, Burnley and St Mirren.
Born in Paisley, he started his career at Dundee United in 1996 and made his début as a substitute in a league match against Hearts in 1997.
[2] By season 1998–1999 he had become a regular in the Dundee United team and in October 2002 began talks on a new contract,[3] insisting a week later they were "going well".
[10] After suffering knee ligament damage in September 2003,[11] Thompson missed most of the season, undergoing surgery which was successful[12] and returning in March.
[18] Since his debut, he was a regular first team member and spent the year forming a partnership with fellow striker Michael Chopra.
He played a total of 45 games in both league and cup competitions during his first year but only managed to find the net 6 times.
Thompson was transfer listed in the summer of 2007 due to his inability to score goals consistently at Championship level but a bizarre injury prevented him from leaving the club.
[20][21] He returned from the injury on 15 September where he came off the bench to grab a late equaliser in a league match against Plymouth Argyle and continued to progress making his first start for Cardiff in five months in November.
However, despite his increasing form he was not formally taken off the transfer list and attracted interest from Scottish Premier League side Aberdeen.
[22] During November and the beginning of December, Thompson was first choice striker for the Bluebirds and normally lined up alongside Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink in the squad and he found the net three times during this period, against Hull City, Colchester United and Blackpool.
After these matches Thompson held an interview with Scottish newspaper The Herald in which he claimed that manager Dave Jones had made him a scapegoat for Cardiff's failure to reach the play-offs the previous year.
[27] He made his Burnley debut on 13 September against Nottingham Forest and went on to make over 40 appearances for the side during the season scoring a career high total of 11 goals, including a 20-yard volley on 12 May in the 2–0 win over Reading in the second leg of the Championship play-off semi-final.
[29] In the 2009–10 season, with Burnley now in the Premier League for the first time in 33 years, Thompson's opportunities were mainly limited to cameo roles.
Following Coyle's departure to rival Bolton and was replaced by Brian Laws, He scored his first Premier League goal for Burnley in a 2–1 defeat by Wolves on 13 March 2010.
[30] Despite Burnley being relegated, Thompson went on to score three goals in the remaining matches, against Sunderland,[31] Birmingham City[32] and Tottenham Hotspur.
[36] Thompson said after the match: "It's important we kept up our momentum, going into these two bigs games at Watford and Cardiff, and taking four out of six points is a good return, on the back of our win against Norwich before that.