Stoke City boss Tony Pulis is confident Jermaine Pennant won't let him down.
Pennant has signed permanently from Real Zaragoza for a fee rising to £2.8 million.
Pennant has had a chequered past and could be seen as a gamble, but Pulis said: "I've been cuddling him for the last three months. But he has been very good, I haven't had to pull him up at all.
"I'm always looking for people with something to prove. You're always looking for people with that desire to want to keep their careers going and keep pushing forward.
"Jermaine has got lost in the wilderness a bit. No one has doubted his talent and this has given him the opportunity and the stage to show that it's there and that he's still good enough to do it. I think there's a lot of players who were given too much too soon, that's one of the problems of professional football. They're comfortable before they've achieved anything.
"People in life who are comfortable can sometimes sit back and don't achieve half of what they could achieve.
"I've had him here three months. If I was signing him tomorrow and knew nothing about him, I'd have spoken to a lot of people.
"Having had him here - and he can be a little scallywag at times, people have told me that - I'll take that on board and deal with it as we go along."
