Henri Camara - Player Profile

Henri was the club’s record signing when he arrived at the JJB Stadium on 6th August 2005. The fee of £3.300.000 made him the town’s most expensive sportsman following in the footsteps of Simon Haworth, Nathan Ellington and Jason Roberts who all previously held that title. He signed a three-year contract and he made his Latics League debut on 14th August 2005 against Chelsea in the first ever Premiership game played at the JJB Stadium. Latics lost the epic encounter 1-0.

Four days later he made his first international appearance as a Latics player when he played in Senegal’s 1-1 draw against Ghana in a friendly game in which he was injured. On October 8th 2005 he became the first Latics player to ever score TWICE in an international game whilst at the club. The game was against Mali in an African Nations World Cup qualifying game and was won 3-0. Henri was also badly missed by the team when he went on African Nations Cup duty for over a month in January 2006. He played five games and scored twice as Senegal finished in fourth place, losing 1-0 to Nigeria in the third/fourth place play off.

By the end of season 2005/06 Henri finished the campaign as the top league goal scorer with 12 Premiership goals in 25+4 Premiership appearances. He was also a member of the team that competed in Latics’ first ever major Cup Final, a 0-4 defeat in the final of the Carling Cup at the hands of Manchester United.

In December of the following 2006/07 Premiership campaign he was named as Senegal’s Player of the Year and paid tribute to Latics by declaring, “People back home laughed at first when I joined Wigan but now they know I’ve never been happier in my career”.

On transfer deadline day, 31st August 2007 he was loaned to West Ham United having failed to feature in any of the Premiership campaign due to injury/fall out with the club.

After failing to gain a place as a first team regular during the first half of season 2008/09 he was loaned to Stoke City on 2nd February 2009 for the remainder of the season. His contract concluded on the last day of June 2009 and he signed a contract with Sheffield United for the remainder of season 2009/10 on 20th October 2009. His full Latics career consists of 46+23 league games with 20 league goals scored.

A bit of Henri Cmara trivia – did you know that in late 2007 he featured in Ronaldinho’s squad for a charity football match. The match was between Europe and the Rest of the World. He came on as a substitute and scored 2 goals in the second half of the game to help his team take the victory.