Eric Djemba-Djemba makes bold top-four prediction and ‘can’t understand’ Guardiola, reveals first encounter with Fergie and horror tackle on Sol Campbell aftermath
Published:
Former Manchester United midfielder Eric Djemba-Djemba has been speaking to Ladbrokes at the launch of Ladbrokes’ 5-A-Side bet on Monday’s Premier League showdown with Liverpool at Old Trafford.
In part one of his exclusive interview, he gave us his score prediction and discussed United’s poor start to the season.
Now he gives us his top-four picks, recalls his early memories on joining United and looks ahead to the World Cup.
Top four prediction; Man United and Spurs to miss out
The top four in the Premier League, for me, will obviously be Manchester City and Liverpool, and then I think it’s Chelsea and Arsenal who join them. There’s no room for Tottenham in there for me, with Man United being even further behind.
I’m putting Arsenal in fourth because I believe – after this summer – that they’re more than capable of challenging and finishing in that final spot ahead of the others. When I saw Tottenham play against Chelsea, they just didn’t look as strong, whereas Arsenal have had a great start and you can see they’re all believing in what the manager is trying to build.
I don’t understand Guardiola… you just don’t let a player like Gabriel Jesus go
In Gabriel Jesus, Arsenal have made one of the signings of the season. In just two Premier League games, you can see how good he is.
Pep Guardiola didn’t give him enough chances, and I just don’t understand that. It doesn’t matter how successful a team you are, you cannot allow a player of Gabriel Jesus’ quality to leave. You just can’t let someone like this go.
It says that Guardiola didn’t have enough confidence in him, but you can already see he’s very happy at Arsenal, where the entire club has confidence in him and he’s the main man. He’s already scored and assisted a couple of goals. If Arsenal finish in the top four, it will be because of Gabriel Jesus.
First time meeting Sir Alex Ferguson was in France, he flew out to watch me play
The first time I met Sir Alex Ferguson properly was in France. He came to watch me play while I was at Nantes. The board told me after the game that I needed to go upstairs and meet someone very important; I had no idea who they were talking about until I walked into the room and saw Ferguson. I didn’t know he was coming to watch me but he introduced himself, shook my hand and that was it until I made my move.
When I arrived in Manchester, Sir Alex welcomed me by wishing me the best of success with the club. He said he hoped we’d go on to win many trophies together and insisted on telling me to go straight to him if I had any questions or problems.
Sadly I don’t see much of him anymore, but I’m in touch with a lot of my old teammates and I’ll always ask them how Sir Alex is. I’ll always keep him in my mind and in my thoughts because he changed my life.
Silvestre, Van Nistelrooy and Gary Neville were the players who helped me settle in Manchester
The players were fantastic in helping me settle when I moved to Manchester United but in particular I have to thank Mikael Silvestre, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Gary Neville. Before I got my house, Mikael would always pick me up and drop me off at training and he helped me with so many things off the pitch.
Ruud and Gary were great with me in training, they were always asking me if everything was okay, if I needed help, if I wanted to go into town – I remember the place was called Deansgate. That’s where they would take me. If I ever needed anything, Gary and Ruud were there for me.
But Mikael Silvestre was the main guy for me. Sometimes he’d invite me to his house to eat with his family, and that’s something I’ll always remember.
Moving to a new country is always hard, especially somewhere like Manchester. The first day I got there, it was raining. And then that was it; I’m pretty sure it was always raining from that moment. It rained, it was cold, and the language was difficult.
In Cameroon we grew up learning English but it’s a completely different thing when you’re in an environment like Manchester. I tried to improve my language while I was living in England, but that accent is so difficult to understand. And then you’ve got the boss; imagine someone like me coming to the club and trying to understand that Scottish accent? It was so different to anything I’d heard before. I tried so hard to understand what people were saying to me… it was tough, but we got there.
Fergie and my Man Utd teammates were laughing at my debut horror tackle on Sol Campbell
My first game in England came in the Community Shield in 2003 against Arsenal. We won the game on penalties but I remember it mainly because of my tackle on Sol Campbell.
Later on in the season Sol spoke to me about it during another match against them. “What were you thinking? You just came to the Premier League and you hit me like that?” I told him what was going through my head at the time, and it was true, I just wanted to get the ball but he was too fast for me. He got there before me and so I ended up tackling him the way I did. I never meant anything by it, but that was basically me announcing myself in England.
All of the Manchester United fans loved it. Everybody was laughing about it in our dressing room afterwards; everyone was happy. Rio Ferdinand told me it was a good thing, what I’d done. He loved it. Sir Alex Ferguson was also so happy in the dressing room. They wanted me to continue like that.
Man United v Arsenal rivalry; I had no idea how big it was until my teammates told me
To be honest, I didn’t really know how big the rivalry was between Arsenal and Manchester United. Obviously I knew they were big clubs, but I thought the bigger rivalries would be between the two Manchester clubs, or between United and Liverpool.
But in that week leading up to the games we played against Arsenal, you could just feel everyone training that little bit harder. Everybody was doing extra to make sure they were ready for that game. Mikael Silvestre would always say to me “Eric, we’re playing against Arsenal this week. I have a lot of friends there; Robert Pires, Sylvain Wiltord, Thierry Henry… we need to win this game.”
Mikael told me the importance of the game; he told me the fans would pretty much kill us if we didn’t win it!
Whenever we played against Arsenal, our dressing room was quiet. It was always so quiet because everyone’s concentration levels were that high; we were all focused on the job we needed to do. It was probably the biggest welcome to England I ever got, in the build-up to that game. People are not joking when they talk about what that fixture means to them.
Spain are the ones to watch in Qatar
There are three teams who will be up there among the favourites to win the World Cup: England, Brazil and France. But people need to be careful about Spain. Spain have a very young and exciting team and they’re coming. People need to be careful about them. Yes, there’s a lot of experience in the France and Brazil teams, and England reaching the final of the Euros last year means they will go to Qatar with a lot of confidence, but Spain are the ones to watch, for me.
As for Cameroon, as much as I would love to see my country go far, it’s going to be very difficult. Our group is so tough, and we don’t have any standout players like we’ve had in previous tournaments. We have a very young team and so for that reason I don’t see us going very far. Obviously I hope we do, and maybe we can reach the knockouts, but it’s not going to be easy at all.
There are many other African countries who can go far, though. I think we’ll see at least one African team in the quarter-finals. You’ve got Senegal and Ghana who are very strong and boast players with so much experience, players who feature in the Premier League.
