Excellent again tonight against Man City.
Never got a start for us. Let him go on a Free Transfer.
Hard to fathom.
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Excellent again tonight against Man City.
Never got a start for us. Let him go on a Free Transfer.
Hard to fathom.
Brought in by Slade for nothing, let go on a free by Warnock.
Peltier also got on tonight.
It's not that hard to fathom really, was well down the pecking order and not ready at the time.
His first team experience at Rotherham played a massive part in his development.
All hindsight.
Or he didn't want to sign a new deal. He was 23 for crying out loud. 100 games later he made it back to the level we were at. He needed to put down some proper roots. Ajayi is probably a good Championship defender but let's keep some perspective. We didn't release Maldini. Good for Ajayi but let's not forget what happened in 17/18, the season after he left. Would we have loaned him out again in 18/19?
Ajayi was 24 when he left us and three years later he's playing in the Premier League. I honestly don't think that there are many other clubs besides Cardiff City who would deem a player "not ready" in their mid twenties - maybe if we'd have been bold enough to give him a chance just before he left, he could have established himself and put himself in the running to be our Young Player of the season in 2018?
Because one of those four hardly played for us again, another one left a year later and another one was getting towards his mid thirties - with a different approach and a little foresight from City, he would, surely, have been happy to stay rather than go to Rotherham.
Fourth choice with a good chance of being second choice a year later - there was always a good chance that Bruno, who was thirty himself by then, would be moving on soon and Bamba was at an age where his performance levels could decline quickly. Truth is though, I was daft to mention "foresight" because City have proved over a period of years that they don't do foresight.
Ajayi needed to play. He wasn't as good as Morrison, Bamba or Manga. He went away and played for 2 and a half seasons in League One and Championship. If he was a centre mid, or a winger that's a different story but we had to make a call on Ajayi. You can't chop and change centre halves, especially when Morrison and Bamba were the best pairing in the league arguably. In 17/18 he got dropped a fair few times and ended up playing defensive mid for Rotherham as he was a liability in League One. Ajayi's career is similar to Moore's where he's a very late developer, he signed for us at 22!
We need a better approach to our youth development and some promising signs are there with Harris but I think Ajayi was at a crossroads and was in the wrong place at the wrong time with us. Take Rodon, if Swansea never got relegated I don't think he'd have ever got a look in there. Many Jacks have said the same. I don't see how Ajayi could have got anywhere near the first team in 17/18 or 18/19.
West Brom have conceded the most goals in the Premier League this season.
At the end of the 14/15 season we had Ajayi at the club in desperate need for some first team action, a run of games at the end of the season where we had literally nothing to play for and we chose to play Danny Gabbidon, who was going to be out of contract a few weeks later. We also played Gabbidon in the league cup and Ajayi was on the bench.
We've needed a better approach to bringing youngsters through for years.