Emmanuel Frimpong has been backed by his current and opposing managers as well as his team-mates to recover from his red card on his Barnsley debut at Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday.
The 22-year-old joined the Reds from Arsenal until the end of the season for an undisclosed fee on Friday, the final day of the January transfer window. He then wrote on his Twitter account – which has 722,000 followers – 'how am I gonna draw girls now?' followed by three images of crying faces. The post was later removed. The following day, after lasting just 30 minutes of his debut before the red card, he wrote in response to a message from a supporter: "Sorry to you fans."
It was the second dismissal of his 34-game career – the other being on his first league start for Arsenal against Liverpool in 2011 – 16 of which have been for the Gunners and he has spent loan spells at Wolves, Charlton and Fulham.
His manager at Wolves, Mick McCarthy – who is now at tomorrow's opponents Ipswich – said: "Frimpong is a good player and a good signing for Barnsley. I was very impressed with his ability and his personality. He was very unlucky that he had a bad knee injury in a game at QPR which set him back because he missed a lot of games. But he's got a great chance to impress with Barnsley now. He's only out for one game so he'll soon be back fighting for his place. He's a physical player and sometimes that can go too far but he's a good lad and a good player."
Reds boss Danny Wilson said: "He just has to temper his enthusiasm a little bit. Competing for every ball is not a bad thing but we have to make sure that it's controlled and the referee didn't deem it to be on Saturday. We had word with him and told him he has to remain calm in certain situations but we don't want to take all the enthusiasm out of his game. The lovely thing about the boy is that he's only 22 and he's had a great background at Arsenal."
Team-mate Peter Ramage said: "He's a lively character and a quality player who will add a lot. He's a joker and he's fitted in effortlessly. On Saturday it was a bit of over exuberance and the fact that he's back playing football."
Frimpong was born in Ghana but grew up in London. He made his debut for his birth country last year and will be hoping that his performances at Barnsley will help him make their squad for the World Cup in Brazil this summer.
