Semi Ajeyi

[Shute]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

I went to Cardiff under Russell Slade where I thought I was going to play but he said afterwards that I was a development project... it annoyed me a bit because I was looking for the one thing I needed, first-team football, and I thought I was going to get it there. So I went out on loan to AFC Wimbledon - where I broke my nose and got concussed in my third game. I don’t remember a thing about it to this day and that’s despite seeing the video play back. I don’t know how it happened.

But Rotherham was the first place I found a home in football. At other places I always felt I was playing for my parent club and not the team I was in. But at Rotherham I really settled down and became a main part of the team and at last I got that regular first-team football I knew I needed. When I first got in there, I think they thought I had played a lot more than I had... I was held up as someone who had already played 100 times but I had only made 20, 30 appearances at that point. But it was great. I got a place just by the ground, the people took me to their heart and made me feel at home and of course we got involved in a promotion season which was massive. We kind of knew what we were doing and hit our form just before Christmas and we flew up the table thinking we could even get top two. In the end we finished fourth and made the Play-Offs but we got past Scunthorpe and then Shrewsbury in the final after extra-time and the feeling... it’s one of the best I can imagine. It was like the whole town turned out for us when we got back and it’s great to see how much a football team can bring to people. Seeing that huge amount of joy being experienced by a community was unforgettable.

Slade pissed him off and he was always looking for a way out. He quite rightly buggered off and built his career as a first teamer. No regrets from me.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

There's a big difference between not ripping into the club for letting Ajayi go and saying he's not good enough for us. Plenty of the former in this thread but I'm not sure if anyone's saying the latter.

Even with hindsight I'm not sure what more the club could've done. We sent him out on loan twice to get experience, he suffered a head injury at Wimbledon and Crewe weren't in a position to extend his spell there so both loans were cut short. Trollope played him in pre-season for 2016-17 but he missed out as senior players got fit, Peltier was played at centre back in his place. By the time we realised he wasn't needed it was too late to send him out on loan till January so he was left kicking his heels with the under-23s.

Warnock came in and brought Bamba with him so Ajayi moved further down the pecking order. While Warnock might have been an ideal manager to bring Ajayi on and eradicate the dreamy mistakes from his game, there was no urgency to do this as we now had that position well covered and the immediate problems were at the other end of the pitch where we were trying to play a counter attacking game with a choice of Fred, Lambert or Chamakh to provide the cutting edge. The priority was knocking a completely out-of-sorts Zohore into some kind of shape rather than Ajayi.

Ajayi was sent on loan to Rotherham that January and with his contract here running down I'm not sure how we were meant to keep him when Rotherham were playing him every week and offering him a contract to join them. Warnock had three excellent centre halves, we couldn't realistically offer Ajayi first team football for at least a year or two so we'd have had to offer him a long term contract for more money than Rotherham were offering, not to play him but to hope we could keep finding him loan deals until he was 25. Even then Ajayi would probably have moved on.

While the odd mistake was overlooked during Rotherham's inevitable relegation to League 1, early blunders the next season cost Ajayi his place by September. Even though he played a lot through the season, he didn't make the starting line-up for Rotherham's last five league games or either of their play off semi final games (but did make the team for the final). I don't remember too many people on here saying we should've kept him then as we celebrated our promotion.

While we were in the Premier League, Ajayi was back in the Championship with Rotherham. Playing in defence until a 7-0 hammering at Man City saw him moved into centre-midfield where he enjoyed a good finish to the season, including a run of 6 goals in five games. West Brom took a chance on him, played him at centre half and he seems to have gone from strength to strength since then.

Looking back, his best chance to make it here was for Trollope to have played him in his back three and for him to have become undroppable but, as I've said, he couldn't even make a League 1 team's starting line-up at the end of the following season so that would've been unlikely. We could've employed Warnock to save us from relegation and then have a shot at promotion the following season and asked him nicely to try out all our youngsters while he was doing it but he might not have gone along with that. We could've admitted our 'mistake' and tried to bring Ajayi back instead of Flint but West Brom would've probably offered him more money and prospects anyway.

Easy to be wise after the event. I enjoyed watching Ajayi play for the under 23s and it would be great if he was playing alongside Morrison now but I find it hard to be too critical of the club on this occasion.

This is a simple matter as far as I'm concerned. The club decided that Ajayi wasn't good enough, the large majority of contributors (most of whom had never seen Ajayi play until he after he left us I daresay) to this thread have supported the club's stance, therefore it follows they didn't rate him good enough to play for us.

He left us when he was in his mid twenties having not featured in the first team in a competitive match at all and in the three and a half years since then, he's played nearly one hundred and forty league matches with the large majority of them being at Championship level or higher, while he made his full international debut for Nigeria in 2018 and has bow won thirteen caps for them - I think those stats look terrible from a Cardiff point of view.

You did see Ajayi play for us and I can remember us having conversations about him at reserve games - am I surprised he's playing in the Premier League now and scoring at Anfield? Yes I am, I didn't believe he could reach the stage where he appears to be West Brom's first choice centreback when they are in the top flight. Did I think he could become a good quality Championship player? Yes, definitely because there was always an element to his game which suggested he could make the step up to senior football - when I first saw James Collins playing at centre half, I was struck by his ability to fire beautifully hit, inch perfect, passes to team mates over long distances, Ajayi was able to do this and, increasingly, he was becoming a threat at set pieces at under 23 level (I wasn't surprised at all when Rotherham began to use him as a deep lying midfielder), his defending was a bit raw (he was slightly at fault with Liverpool's goal yesterday), but I thought it was improving during his time with us..

The most any City fans saw of Ajayi was was in his Development team appearances, but staff at the club saw him training every day when he wasn't out on loan to someone else - if, with that extra knowledge, they are genuinely surprised by how Ajayi's career has developed since he left us, then I think their judgement of players cannot be very good.

[LeningradCowboy]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

I was wondering how long it would take for this thread to be resurrected after yesterday's game.

Funny that it stayed quiet last weekend.

[Loramski]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

This is a simple matter as far as I'm concerned. The club decided that Ajayi wasn't good enough, the large majority of contributors (most of whom had never seen Ajayi play until he after he left us I daresay) to this thread have supported the club's stance, therefore it follows they didn't rate him good enough to play for us.

He left us when he was in his mid twenties having not featured in the first team in a competitive match at all and in the three and a half years since then, he's played nearly one hundred and forty league matches with the large majority of them being at Championship level or higher, while he made his full international debut for Nigeria in 2018 and has bow won thirteen caps for them - I think those stats look terrible from a Cardiff point of view.

You did see Ajayi play for us and I can remember us having conversations about him at reserve games - am I surprised he's playing in the Premier League now and scoring at Anfield? Yes I am, I didn't believe he could reach the stage where he appears to be West Brom's first choice centreback when they are in the top flight. Did I think he could become a good quality Championship player? Yes, definitely because there was always an element to his game which suggested he could make the step up to senior football - when I first saw James Collins playing at centre half, I was struck by his ability to fire beautifully hit, inch perfect, passes to team mates over long distances, Ajayi was able to do this and, increasingly, he was becoming a threat at set pieces at under 23 level (I wasn't surprised at all when Rotherham began to use him as a deep lying midfielder), his defending was a bit raw (he was slightly at fault with Liverpool's goal yesterday), but I thought it was improving during his time with us..

The most any City fans saw of Ajayi was was in his Development team appearances, but staff at the club saw him training every day when he wasn't out on loan to someone else - if, with that extra knowledge, they are genuinely surprised by how Ajayi's career has developed since he left us, then I think their judgement of players cannot be very good.

I'm not sure how starting his first season well in the Premier League is proof that he was good enough to play in our first team four years ago. I explained that he couldn't make Rotherham's team at the end of 2017-18 in League 1 and yet you want to mock those of us who don't realise we should actually have been dropping two of Morrison, Bamba and Manga to make way for him in our promotion team that season.

How should the club have gone about developing him into a first teamer here with those three ahead of him? He was 23, not 18 like Bagan is, so when the chance of regular football came up with Rotherham it's hardly surprising he wanted to move on. How would you have kept him here in that situation? How would you have kept Heaton happy with Marshall ahead of him, how would you have kept McCormack happy with Bothroyd and Chopra ahead of him? These situations arise now and again.

As has been said elsewhere in this thread, every team has let a player go who goes on to be successful elsewhere. Sometimes it's down to a massive mistake, sometimes it's just circumstances. I'd class the Ajayi situation in the latter category.

[LeningradCowboy]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

I'm not sure how starting his first season well in the Premier League is proof that he was good enough to play in our first team four years ago. I explained that he couldn't make Rotherham's team at the end of 2017-18 in League 1 and yet you want to mock those of us who don't realise we should actually have been dropping two of Morrison, Bamba and Manga to make way for him in our promotion team that season.

How should the club have gone about developing him into a first teamer here with those three ahead of him? He was 23, not 18 like Bagan is, so when the chance of regular football came up with Rotherham it's hardly surprising he wanted to move on. How would you have kept him here in that situation? How would you have kept Heaton happy with Marshall ahead of him, how would you have kept McCormack happy with Bothroyd and Chopra ahead of him? These situations arise now and again.

As has been said elsewhere in this thread, every team has let a player go who goes on to be successful elsewhere. Sometimes it's down to a massive mistake, sometimes it's just circumstances. I'd class the Ajayi situation in the latter category.

I'm afraid that you're banging your head against a brick wall with this one.

[Pedro de la Rosa]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

He looks a good player whenever I’ve seen him, if he hadn’t trained with Rotherham and played fewer than 100 game for them, he wouldn’t have been good enough for Cardiff according to some on here

Should have been loaned out for that one Sean then given some playing time here.

Why would Ajayi have signed a contract extension here? I wouldn’t have.

[StraightOuttaCanton]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

I'm not sure how starting his first season well in the Premier League is proof that he was good enough to play in our first team four years ago. I explained that he couldn't make Rotherham's team at the end of 2017-18 in League 1 and yet you want to mock those of us who don't realise we should actually have been dropping two of Morrison, Bamba and Manga to make way for him in our promotion team that season.

How should the club have gone about developing him into a first teamer here with those three ahead of him? He was 23, not 18 like Bagan is, so when the chance of regular football came up with Rotherham it's hardly surprising he wanted to move on. How would you have kept him here in that situation? How would you have kept Heaton happy with Marshall ahead of him, how would you have kept McCormack happy with Bothroyd and Chopra ahead of him? These situations arise now and again.

As has been said elsewhere in this thread, every team has let a player go who goes on to be successful elsewhere. Sometimes it's down to a massive mistake, sometimes it's just circumstances. I'd class the Ajayi situation in the latter category.

2 excellent posts by you.... enjoyed reading them both. Well reasoned and objective. Objectivity is a bit of an alien concept on here unfortunately.

I’m pleased for Ajayi but in my opinion he’s an average Championship level defender at best... and we’ve had, and still have, a bunch of those

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

I'm not sure how starting his first season well in the Premier League is proof that he was good enough to play in our first team four years ago. I explained that he couldn't make Rotherham's team at the end of 2017-18 in League 1 and yet you want to mock those of us who don't realise we should actually have been dropping two of Morrison, Bamba and Manga to make way for him in our promotion team that season.

How should the club have gone about developing him into a first teamer here with those three ahead of him? He was 23, not 18 like Bagan is, so when the chance of regular football came up with Rotherham it's hardly surprising he wanted to move on. How would you have kept him here in that situation? How would you have kept Heaton happy with Marshall ahead of him, how would you have kept McCormack happy with Bothroyd and Chopra ahead of him? These situations arise now and again.

As has been said elsewhere in this thread, every team has let a player go who goes on to be successful elsewhere. Sometimes it's down to a massive mistake, sometimes it's just circumstances. I'd class the Ajayi situation in the latter category.

I'm not sure where i said we should be dropping first choice centrebacks for Ajayi, what I said is that we could have tried to keep him with a promise that his chance would come soon given the age of those in front of him and the possible departure of Manga. Based on the quote from him that has been posted in the thread, that may well not have been enough to keep him here, but, as I said earlier, the success he's had since leaving us does raise questions about decision making at the club regarding his contract, especially in light of the fee spent on Aden Flint.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

2 excellent posts by you.... enjoyed reading them both. Well reasoned and objective. Objectivity is a bit of an alien concept on here unfortunately.

I’m pleased for Ajayi but in my opinion he’s an average Championship level defender at best... and we’ve had, and still have, a bunch of those

I accept that I'm banging this drum loud, but I've never had a problem on here admitting to having made a mistake and I might be here, but to accuse me (presumably you meant me?) of lacking objectivity and then saying Ajayi is "an average Championship level defender at best" in your next sentence is going it a bit when you consider that he was a regular starter both for a promotion winning side last season and again in the Premier Division. Do you seriously think he would be doing that if he was just "average" for the division below the one he is currently playing in?

[StraightOuttaCanton]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

I accept that I'm banging this drum loud, but I've never had a problem on here admitting to having made a mistake and I might be here, but to accuse me (presumably you meant me?) of lacking objectivity and then saying Ajayi is "an average Championship level defender at best" in your next sentence is going it a bit when you consider that he was a regular starter both for a promotion winning side last season and again in the Premier Division. Do you seriously think he would be doing that if he was just "average" for the division below the one he is currently playing in?

This in my opinion is where your intransigence is shining through. What have you seen that says he’s anything more than an average Championship defender, which is what he’ll be again next season.

I also think that Morrison who had exactly the same credentials you are espousing for Ajayi is also just an average Championship defender... as were Bamba, Manga, Bennett and Peltier (who also got signed by WBA).

[Tuerto]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

2 excellent posts by you.... enjoyed reading them both. Well reasoned and objective. Objectivity is a bit of an alien concept on here unfortunately.

I’m pleased for Ajayi but in my opinion he’s an average Championship level defender at best... and we’ve had, and still have, a bunch of those

How many times have you seen him play?

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

This in my opinion is where your intransigence is shining through. What have you seen that says he’s anything more than an average Championship defender, which is what he’ll be again next season.

I also think that Morrison who had exactly the same credentials you are espousing for Ajayi is also just an average Championship defender... as were Bamba, Manga, Bennett and Peltier (who also got signed by WBA).

So, you're saying that Ajayi plus all of the defenders we had at the club when we got promoted were average at Championship level? I accept that there is an argument to say that they aren't Premier League standard, but you genuinely believe that none of those you list are good Championship defenders (and weren't when we got promoted?)? All I can say is that you have very demanding standards.

[Tuerto]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

So, you're saying that Ajayi plus all of the defenders we had at the club when we got promoted were average at Championship level? I accept that there is an argument to say that they aren't Premier League standard, but you genuinely believe that none of those you list are good Championship defenders (and weren't when we got promoted?)? All I can say is that you have very demanding standards.

Manga and Morrison aren't-weren't average at championship level, neither was Bamba on his day. Ludicrous to say so in my opinion.

[Tuerto]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

So, you're saying that Ajayi plus all of the defenders we had at the club when we got promoted were average at Championship level? I accept that there is an argument to say that they aren't Premier League standard, but you genuinely believe that none of those you list are good Championship defenders (and weren't when we got promoted?)? All I can say is that you have very demanding standards.

Bob, do you think that your reaction on the progress of Ajayi would be a little more laissez faire if we had more of a track record of developing young players over the last ten years or so?

[surge]

Re: Semi Ajeyi

This in my opinion is where your intransigence is shining through. What have you seen that says he’s anything more than an average Championship defender, which is what he’ll be again next season.

I also think that Morrison who had exactly the same credentials you are espousing for Ajayi is also just an average Championship defender... as were Bamba, Manga, Bennett and Peltier (who also got signed by WBA).

Sean Morrison appeared in the 2019-2020 Whoscored team of the year:

Partnering Hutchinson at the back is Cardiff's Sean Morrison. Only Preston's Patrick Bauer (249) won more aerial duels than Morrison (243) in the Championship this season. The 29-year-old scored four and assisted two for the Bluebirds, while no player won more WhoScored.com man of the match awards than Morrison (10) to contribute towards his inclusion in this team with a rating of 7.26.

He did not appear in the PFA team of the year for the same season. Ajayi didn't make that PFA team either but he does appear in the Sky Championship pundits team of the year:

And White's partner at the back is West Brom's Ajayi, signed from Rotherham in the summer and has quickly established himself as one of the top defenders in the Championship. Four of our six pundits selected him in their side

Think you might have higher expectations for really good Championship defenders than is fair considering two of those who described as average were in some (not all) of the best 11 for last season.