Djemba Djemba Questions Future

The sorry tale of unhappy players being bought and not used at Villa Park has continued! This time Jumper Jumper (ok, Eric Djemba-Djemba!) has questioned whether he has a future at Villa. The Cameroon international joined from Manchester United for £1.3million in the January transfer window but has been unable to gain a regular first team place. In fact, in the 10 months he has been at Villa, he has only started four times. The same situation arose for Berson who is currently out on loan at Lyon.

Jumper Jumper is the second player this week to question his future following Lee Hendrie’s comments that he might have to go out on loan if he isn’t going to feature for the team, although to be fair, Hendrie’s comments were more premature as he has only just returned to full fitness!

It appears Steven Davis, Eirik Bakke, Lee Hendrie and Gavin McCann are all ahead of Jumper Jumper in the pecking order.

The midfielder said: ‘I want everyone to know I’m fit,’ although he doesn’t say for what to be fair. He added ‘I’ve come on in four games and I’ve done well. It’s down to the manager. If he wants to put me in the team, he will. I’m a professional, but if I’m only here just to train every day, then I’m wasting my time. At the moment, I’m happy to train and fight for me place but, if not, I will see the manager and discuss the situation. I know when I will see him – but it won’t be yet because we’ve only played 12 games so it’s too early. If that time comes I just want the manager to be honest with me and tell me I can leave.’

He is worried about his international future if he doesn’t start getting first team football: ‘I’ve played in the World Cup in 2002, I’ve played in a Confederations Cup final where we lost 1-0 to France and I’ve played in two African Nations Cups. So Cameroon know me very well, but they know that if I don’t play for the first team, I won’t be as sharp. You need to be playing first-team football to play well for your country. If I’m not playing first team football, I may end up on the bench for Cameroon, or out of the squad altogether. I need to play here because here is my life -this is where my career is. I like English football but if I can’t play here, then I’ll play somewhere else.’

He said that he has had plenty of offers from France, so it would be easy for him to move, and that there are also options in Spain but ‘I want to play in England with Villa.’

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