45: Eric Djemba-Djemba, Aston Villa, Merlin’s F.A. Premier League Official Sticker Collection 2006/07

Richard Allinson takes a look across the page from our last post to a man who didn’t quite endear himself to the Aston Villa faithful in the same way Olof Mellberg did. In fairness spending some more time in Cameroon after the African Cup of Nations was probably a more attractive prospect than working for David O’Leary. Over to Rich with a man so good they named him twice.

Recently, Facebook reminded me that when Paul Pogba signed for Manchester United I put up a pithy status along the lines of “£89.3m is a lot of money for Eric Djemba-Djemba v2.0.” Whilst I was right in my belief that Pogba would turn out to be utter dogshit, it did get me wondering whether I had been a bit harsh on Eric by using him as a barometer of being not very good. 

After a successful start to his career in France with Nantes and impressing at the 2002 World Cup, the Cameroonian crossed the English Channel to make a dream move to Manchester United and was billed as a potential long term replacement for Roy Keane. At the time Ferguson eulogised over Djemba-Djemba saying “...quick, aggressive and a good passer of the ball... he looks like a Manchester United player in every sense." 

Ferguson’s 2003/04 recruitment drive brings us to the first caveat on Djemba-Djemba’s career. Ordinarily you expect anyone that pulls on the Red Devils’ shirt to be an elite footballer and judging by the above quote this was seemingly the bracket that United and S’Alex had put Eric in. However, Ferguson’s signings that summer were so bad you forget that Cristiano Ronaldo was actually one of them: Djemba-Djemba, David Bellion, Kléberson and Tim Howard. With the slight exception of Howard, they were all really poor. So really was it ever fair to expect Eric to live up to the billing of the next Roy Keane? After all, Fergie also tried Kléberson, Liam Miller, Alan Smith, Anderson and a repositioned Wayne Rooney in this role over the years with very limited success and Nantes weren’t exactly bothering France’s top sides at the time of the transfer either. 

Obviously deciding that he needed to stamp his authority on things and make a good first impression, Djemba-Djemba absolutely mullered Sol Campbell in the Charity Shield - a tackle that Arsene Wenger described as ‘obscene’. His Alf Inge-Håland moment maybe? This was a bit of an auspicious start for Eric and things never really got much better, in 18 months in the North West he only managed 20 league games and 39 matches in total scoring two goals in the process. In fact, research for this article showed that perhaps the most noteworthy thing that happened during his time at United was that he used to enjoy going to Nando’s with Ronaldo. He also went really bankrupt, and not because he bought a load of Macho Peas. When Djemba-Djemba signed for Man United it was reported that he was earning £75k a week which is rather a lot, even for the next Roy Keane. However, his agent at the time reported that Djemba-Djemba inexplicably had 30 bank accounts and 10 cars and that he was paying off so so much debt that he had to rely on win bonuses and appearance fees to get by. Not great when you hardly ever get played. For his part, Djemba-Djemba denied that this was true and to be fair it does seem farfetched.

Eric was eventually shown the exit door at United, so in that sense I guess he was like Roy Keane although I assume his exit wasn’t also down to slagging off Darren Fletcher on MUTV. In January 2005, Aston Villa decided that signing a Man United bit part player was just what they needed to compete towards the top end of the Premier League and Djemba-Djemba was snapped up for £1.5m. And here is the second caveat to his time in England, he was set up to fail at Villa. He was out of sorts at United, struggling for form, lacking in game time and in the middle of significant financial troubles. With this as the foundation, Villa thrust him into a middle of the road side and gave him 11 appearances (not even full games) to prove himself and then binned him off. Well done. Next up was a loan move to Burnley, then of the Championship. It was here that Djemba-Djemba started to re-establish himself and show a glimpse of what brought him to England in the first place. With this behind him Eric could reasonably have expected to start pushing for a place in the Villa side come the start of the new season, but instead the Midlands club elected to terminate his contract. Again, well done. 

Leaving England started a bit of a merry-go-round for ol’ Eric. He moved to Qatar, Denmark (where he did really well, playing 102 games for OB), Israel, Serbia, Scotland, India, Indonesia and finally the Swiss fifth tier. Basically, he went on a really long gap year. Just a gap year that took in St. Mirren. 

Recently, Djemba-Djemba admitted that his money struggles were hard to deal with but that he had grown and learnt from them. More importantly, he had this to say about his career: “I am happy with what I have achieved in my career and when I stop playing football I will be proud of what I did for my clubs.” Can Roy Keane say that? Actually, he probably can. But nevertheless, I’m glad it all worked out well for Eric in the end.