Only playing 10 games for Watford, Essaïd Belkalem’s time at the now Premier League club wasn’t the best.
Moving on a free after a loan spell from Granada, the Algerian centre-back was the sent on loan to Trabzonspor for the 2014-15 season before being released over the summer on a free.
Picked up a few days later by Ligue 2 outfit US Orléans, the 27-year-old is finding joy in his football again, and spoke to Le Buteur in his home country about his trials and tribulations in England during a difficult three years.
He said: “When Watford got promoted to the Premier League, I came back with a big motivation. However, the board already had their own plan, and wanted to loan me to Granada, seeing as they wanted a defender, but I didn’t want to.”
“If I came back to Watford, it was for the project. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I wanted to stay, especially since I had the ability to break through. The Watford board didn’t like my refusal to go to Granada, and pushed me to one side. The rest, everyone knows.”
Choosing Ligue 2 football over other more ‘appealing options’, Belkalem explained all he wanted to do was play football again, and decided to join Orléans, joining compatriots Karim Ziani and Anthar Yahia in the process.
Slowly getting back into the swing of things after a year of just training by himself and ‘keeping fit’, the player has now made eight appearances for the small French club since joining in early September.
He even scored a goal on Friday night in a 2-1 win against Olympique Nimes.
