Sol Bamba credits Didier Drogba for influencing his professional career

Cardiff City defender Sol Bamba has said that Didier Drogba played a role in shaping up his professional playing career. The 34-year-old shared the same dressing room with the former Chelsea star in the national setup and he has now spoken about the experience of playing with and against the Ivory Coast legend.

Speaking to reporters, Bamba hailed the qualities of the former Blues ace, who recently retired from the beautiful game, he said: “Didier Drogba was our captain and he was the best striker I ever came up against. What a player, strong with both feet, good in the air and on his day I quickly learned you cannot mark him. It was good experience trying, though!”

Meanwhile, the centre-back highlighted his great relationship with manager Neil Warnock over the past few seasons, he added: “The gaffer is everything to me. We have a great relationship and we sit and talk about everything. He just said to me, ‘I know you want to show how good you are and you have got that in your locker, but you have to be more simple’.”

Bamba has been one of Cardiff’s strong performers this term despite the trailing age and he has kept seven clean sheets from his 24 appearances for the team. Regardless of this, Cardiff have a battle on their hands to beat the drop and it will be interesting to see whether they can make the most of the home matches where they have looked much more creative.

The Welsh outfit recently bagged a 2-0 triumph over Southampton and the game marked their first match at their stadium since the tragic aircraft disappearance of Emiliano Sala. Bobby Reid was the scorer of both goals as he made amends for the previous meeting against Arsenal where he was guilty of missing clear-cut chances.