Curtis Davies hasn't given up on his Aston Villa career.
Davies signed with Leicester City on-loan last week.
Before Saturday's outing, he had not played a league game for a year, but he expressed his delight at joining Sven-Goran Eriksson's side and playing first-team football again.
"I got a call from my agent on Thursday night and said Mr Eriksson had called Gerard Houllier at Villa and they had spoken about me going on loan just to get a few games," he told the Birmingham Mail.
"I haven't played properly for a year so he (Houllier) needs to see me before he can possibly give me a game. I came into the training ground on Friday morning, signed the papers and trained and was just thrown into it.
"My career hadn't stalled, it had stopped. I was never worried about my form, it wasn't a problem.
"People were saying it was because of a lack of form and injury. How can you have a lack of form when you aren't playing?''