Habib Beye retired from professional football in 2012 after a loan spell with Doncaster Rovers.
Having moved to Aston Villa to escape playing in the second division with Newcastle United, pride preventing him from staying with a club he was very happy at, Beye found himself having to drop down a league anyway, and at a club much smaller than the Magpies.
It was clear there’d been a bad decision made along the way, perhaps tangled in with some bad luck, and Beye is open enough to admit that the transfer wasn’t a good choice.
Speaking to French newspaper L’Equipe, Beye was asked which club he should never have signed for in his career… which was the worst decision.
It was a clear response, with the 40 year old explaining: “Aston Villa. I went there because of pride when Newcastle were relegated. I was a core player of the Magpies. I had my songs at St James’ Park. I knew that the club was prepared to go up but I did not want to be considered a player of division two. My second year at Aston Villa, it went wrong with Gerard Houllier. He behaved badly with me and he knows it. I finally went on loan to Doncaster, in… division two.”
Now the former footballer pops up on French TV as a pundit and commentator, helped by his experience of playing for PSG, Strasbourg and Marseille before moving to Newcastle in 2007.