Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
Did I think Ajayi would be playing in the Premier League within three years? No I didn't. Did I think that he was someone who could do a job for us based on what I had seen of him in what I would guess would be around twenty appearances for our under 23s? Yes I did. All four of those centrebacks you mentioned were thirty plus or getting fairly close to that age and so it was clear that a degree of rebuilding would need to be carried out in that position.

Ajayi's subsequent career proves I was underestimating him when I thought of him as only a potential Championship player, but, more important than that, our manager at the time didn't rate him that highly - if he had done, there wouldn't have been any need to have spent all of those millions on Aden Flint.
Was Ajayi good enough at the time to play for us in the season that we got promoted? Let's be honest, he probably wasn't, so how would he have developed if he had stayed here? Not by playing for the under 23s.