Mohamed Diamé has an unequivocal answer to almost incessant questions about why he turned his back on the Premier League in order to sign for Championship side Newcastle United.
“I’ve always wanted to play for a big club in the UK,” says the former Wigan Athletic and West Ham United midfielder who walked away from newly promoted Hull City in August. “And Newcastle are a massive club. After the big four, or maybe big six, in the Premier League, it’s Newcastle.”
Although much hinges on Rafael Benítez’s side returning to the top tier this season, Diamé is confident he made the right move. “Long term, Newcastle’s definitely better than Hull,” he says as he prepares for Saturday’s trip to Aston Villa.
“Everywhere you go in the world, even in Africa, everyone knows Newcastle United so I took this decision and now I have to do everything to get this club back into the Premier League. But, when I joined, I wasn’t thinking about just this season but two, three or four seasons’ time.”
Departing Humberside was made more straightforward by Steve Bruce’s despairing resignation in July amid destabilising takeover talk and an alarming lack of squad strengthening.
“When I was there under Steve Bruce, the squad was better than it is at the moment,” says the 29-year-old. “It was a long, tough season in the Championship last year but we did it and I was thinking about the new season with Hull in the Premier League. Then the situation started going wrong. Everyone knows how close I was to Steve Bruce and seeing him leave like he did had a big impact on me. I wasn’t in a good mood. It was then I decided to leave too because the situation was just weird.”
Benítez chose the right moment to pick up the phone. “I spoke to Rafa Benítez and he told me he wanted me in his squad,” says the Senegal international. “He explained all his targets and talked about the project here and I knew Newcastle was the right place for me.”
A decade ago involvement in such a “project” would have seemed sheer fantasy after cardiological checks at his first club, Lens, revealed a potential heart defect which concerned doctors sufficiently to advise Diamé to never run again, let alone play football.
Second opinions were sought and extensive tests undertaken but despite specialists eventually allowing him to resume his chosen career, clubs were wary of recruiting the Paris-born Clairefontaine graduate and he ended up having to start all over again at CD Linares in Spain’s third division.
If Diamé now describes every game as “a blessing”, he holds no grudge against Lens for taking such a cautious attitude towards an abnormality now subject to regular monitoring. “The club took the decision because they did not want the risk but I’m happy with how my life has gone since,” he says. “It was hard for me at the time though because it came just at the moment when I achieved my target of playing professional football. It was a tough moment.
“The medical stuff is not very major but every season I have to be checked to see there’s nothing wrong, nothing bad going on. But I feel OK; it’s more a case of monitoring than anything else.”
He sympathises with Sunderland’s Patrick van Aanholt after it emerged that the left-back also has a heart condition demanding regular screening. “It’s something you have to be careful about,” he says. “But, as a footballer, it’s not easy because it’s what we’ve been doing all our lives. I know Patrick, we played together at Wigan, I’ll give him a call and offer him any advice he may need.”
First Villa must be tackled. Like Newcastle, they possess a Champions League-winning manager but Diamé is confident Robert Di Matteo’s players can be beaten. “They’re also a big club,” he says. “It’s a massive game but we go there to win.”
Benítez certainly hopes his team will atone for last week’s unscheduled 2-0 home defeat against Wolves, which rather abruptly ended a run of five straight Championship wins, culminating in a 6-0 thrashing of Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road.
“Losing to Wolves after such a good game at QPR was a shock,” conceded Diamé. “We need to react to that defeat.”
