Bernard Diomede has been speaking to L’Equipe this weekend about his career.
Now 45 years of age, the former footballer had a brief, and not very eventful, time with Liverpool during his playing days.
Gerard Houllier signed the then winger from Auxerre in 2003. He found it hard to settle at Liverpool and only played a handful of games for the club.
Then he was loaned to Ajaccio back in France, eventually joining the club on a permanent transfer when his contract at Anfield expired.
L’Equipe asked Diomede to name something crazy from his playing years, and his reply won’t be a huge shock: “El-Hadji Diouf in Liverpool. When you arrive in England, you are nobody. Especially in a club with strong identity with Gerrard, Fowler, Owen, Carragher.
“He, he feared no one, was like at home and did not respect the rules: you had to speak English and he spoke French, he kept it up all the time, mocked the dressing room, on the bus. It was reframing in the training: a player missed the pass so that behind takes a tackle.”
Diouf’s Liverpool period has subsequently caused a lot of controversy, with the player repeatedly speaking negatively about the senior Liverpool players who were at the club at the same time.