Kebe: Jimmy Boubou (Jimmy)

2014-2014 (Leeds Player Details)(Player Details)

Winger

Born: Vitry-sur-Seine, France: 19-01-1984

Debut: v Sheffield Wednesday (a): 11-01-2014

6’1" 11st 4lb (2013)

Kebe started his career with RC Lens in 2002, but never made a first team debut but managed five goals in fifty-seven games for the Reserves.He was twice loaned out, firstly to Chateauroux for the 2006-07 season from 18th July 2006, where he scored twice in eighteen games and then in the following season, from 1st August 2007 he scored five goals in sixteen games while with Boulonge. He had already been chosen at Under-Twenty-Three level for Mali, making four appearances in 2004 for them in the Olmpics and he gained his first full cap in 2005 and later got two more when he was included in the Mali team that lost to Gabon on 19th August 2008 in a friendly and the started in a World Cup Group D 3-1 win at the Stade Modibo Keita on 21st June 2009 in a 3-1 win over Benin when he started but had to be replaced by Souleymane Dembele after just twenty-two minutes. In January 2008 Kebe went on strike to get out of his loan at Boulogne and he was transferred to Steve Coppell's EPL side, Reading, for £400 on 28th January 2008 on a two-and-a-half year contract, after he had been discovered by Brian McDermott. He made five appearances for the Royals in his first season of 2007-08, making his debut as an eighty-first minute substitute for John Oster in a 0-1 defeat by Everton at Goodison Park. There were three more late substitute appearances before in his fifth game he started in a 0-2 defeat by Arsenal at the Emirates and lasted seventy-nine minutes before being replaced by Marek Matejovsky. After that and Reading's subsequent relgation to the Championship, he became a regular in the team, scoring his first goal on 22nd November 2008 in a 1-2 home defeat by Southampton, and on 13th December 2008 he was given a further two years extension to his contract, keeping him at the club until summer 2012. In the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons he became a virtual ever-present and a regular goalscorer, as Reading pushed for promotion, failing in the play-offs in 2008-09, before finally gaining promotion as champions in 2011-12. However, he had spent much of that season in dispute with the club over his new contract and with his contract due to expire at the end of the season, he was insisting on a three year extension, whereas the club would only go as far as two. Eventually after interest from West Ham United and Leicester City he decided to sign the two year contract with Reading, which would keep him at the Madejski Stadium until summer 2014. The EPL was a quite different proposition and he found it hard to reproduce the success he had enjoyed in the lower division and he became injury prone. A groin injury early in their game at Everton on 2nd March 2014 saw him sidelined for the rest of the season, as the Berkshire side suffered relegation. He went on to start one hundred and forty-nine League games together with twenty-six more from the bench in which he scored twenty-nine goals. He also scored twice in six starts and three games as a substitute in the F.A. Cup but failed to score in two starts and one game from the bench in the League Cup and three starts in the Championship play-offs. On 31st August 2013 Ian Holloway took him to newly promoted Crystal Palace on a three year contract for a fee rumoured to be £500,000 and so he remained in the EPL. He made his debut as a seventy-fifth minute substitute for Marouane Chamakh in a 0-2 defeat by Manchester United at Old Trafford on 14th September 2014. His starting debut came two weeks later in a 0-2 defeat by Southampton at St Mary's when he was replaced by Kevin Phillips after seventy-three minutes. He had only started two League games and come on as a substitute in four more as since Tony Pulis had replaced Holloway he had found himself out of favour. On 10th January 2014, he joined Leeds United on loan until the end of the season, with the option to sign permanently at the end of that time. He made his debut in the disasterous Leeds visit to Hillsborough on the following day, in which Leeds performed abysmally and went down to Sheffield Wednesday by 0-6, with Kebe making way for Sam Byram after sixty-six minutes. Things had to improve and he scored his first, and only, goal in the fiftieth minute of a 5-1 home win over Huddersfield Town on 1st February 2014. His final game at Leeds came when he was replaced by Alex Mowatt in the sixty-fourth minute on 8th March 2014 and he returned to Crystal Palace two days later. He was not included in any Crytal Palace team for almost a year and his contract was cancelled by mutual consent on 31st January 2015. He had trials with Spanish side Mallorca in July 2015, but although he passed a medical the club would not be committed to a player who had been out of action for a year.