The extraordinary story behind Seydou Doumbia’s awful spell at St James’ Park – unbelievable

The Chronicle have revealed this morning that Seydou Doumbia ‘didn’t like to train during the week’, with his poor attitude and lack of effort in training meaning Rafa Benitez had no interest in playing the prolific Ivory Coast international in the 2015/16 season.

Looking back, I was actually quite buoyed by the signing of Doumbia on deadline day in January 2016. We desperately needed a goalscorer and Doumbia was exactly that, having bagged almost 200 goals in in 342 career appearances.

It didn’t work out, with him playing just 29 minutes of football for the club, and it’s easy to see why following the quite extraordinary revelation in the Chronicle today.

Here’s what they had to say about the 30-year-old (now at Sporting Lisbon), admitting that he was used to missing midweek training sessions at former club CSKA Moscow – something that he wasn’t going to get away with under Rafa Benitez:

“Carr had recommended him but the first half of the season at CSKA Moscow had seen any training regime go out the window. The story goes that he didn’t like to train during the week for fear of getting injured and those at CSKA let him get away with that.

“With Benitez arriving and a total shake-up in training, Doumbia was never going to be allowed to get away with hiding on the training pitch. There’s no doubting his eye for goal – even in leagues such as Russia and Switzerland – his goalscoring record is outstanding.

“But with a poor attitude and even poorer training regime meant that it was never going to work on Tyneside.”

As proven by Benitez’s preference to play the hard working Joselu over the more dangerous Mitrovic, Rafa will sometimes opt for effort and professionalism over talent.

With this in mind, it’s no wonder Doumbia barely played a minute for the club – despite the prolific Ivorian being brought in to fire us to safety!

(Fancy writing for us? Send any articles/ideas over to us at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)

About Olly Hawkins

As a Junior Magpie since birth and season ticket holder, I eat, sleep and breathe all things NUFC! Here at the blog, I aim to bring you news, views, match reports and transfer exclusives as and when I get them.

2 thoughts on “The extraordinary story behind Seydou Doumbia’s awful spell at St James’ Park – unbelievable

  1. When we went down Andros Townsend’s dad posted on Twitter to say that it was a disgrace his son was getting grief when Doumbia would barely move during training sessions or regularly complained that he was feeling odd strains or muscle pains so would need to take it easy… he said the other lads in the squad would ask how he managed to have a six pack yet the stamina of someone who had never been for a run in his life… 🙂

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  2. bm1892:
    When we went down Andros Townsend’s dad posted on Twitter to say that it was a disgrace his son was getting grief when Doumbia would barely move during training sessions or regularly complained that he was feeling odd strains or muscle pains so would need to take it easy… he said the other lads in the squad would ask how he managed to have a six pack yet the stamina of someone who had never been for a run in his life… ?

    Christ – to think Townsend got the grief despite giving his absolute all and performing as well as any NUFC player in the final few months of the season.

    He may have ‘jumped ship’, but you could see how desperate he was to keep us up and make a name for himself.

    Would take him back if Palace went down.

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