09-23-2019, 08:01 AM
Semi Ajayi was just nine years old when his potential was first identified but in his mid-20s by the time he began to fulfill it.
He was lauded at Charlton Athletic, promoted but ultimately rejected by Arsenal, and eventually nurtured at Rotherham United.
Now, West Bromwich Albion are reaping the rewards of a player who took more than a decade to fully blossom but seems hell bent on making up for lost time.
The 25-year-old scored his second goal in nine days on Sunday as Albion beat Huddersfield Town 4-2 to further cement his place as a darling of Baggies fans. And they can thank Rotherham manager Paul Warne and some slices of fortune for delivering them a £1.5 million bargain that is already reaping handsome dividends.
Ajayi’s career is on a steep upward trajectory after bumping along in the ‘untapped talent’ zone until Warne took a chance on a Cardiff cast-off with rich potential two-and-a-half years ago.
“This might sound an awful thing to say but it was kind of a case of beggars not being choosers,” admits Warne of his decision to sign Ajayi in January 2017, with his side rock bottom of the Championship. “At Christmas, we only had 10 points in the Championship, so it wasn’t as though we had a queue of unbelievable centre halves queuing up to join us.
“But I knew what type of player I wanted and I knew what type of bloke I wanted, and he was both of them. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. It can happen that you have talent but if you’re fifth-choice centre half, you’re not going to play every week and it becomes difficult. Sometimes, if you drop down a level and then down a level again until you’re a key figure and you’re playing every week, you can become a different player. Sometimes, you need a really good loan or to drop a level to move forward.”
Ajayi’s life is a tale of moves, both forward and backward.
The son of Nigerian parents growing up in south east London, Ajayi describes himself as “obsessed with football” in his formative years.
“I always had a ball at my feet and I got to seven or eight and my mum and dad thought I had join a team because I was always in the house breaking stuff,” he tells The Athletic. “They sent me to my first Sunday league team and at nine, I got spotted by Charlton.
“I got a really good education there and had really good schooling from the likes of Steve Avory and Steve Gritt (former academy manager).”
Ajayi’s career progressed impressively at The Valley as a member of a team that reached the last eight of the FA Youth Cup (in 2011-12) but had his teachers had their way, he might have been lost to football at an early age.
Academically bright, the young Ajayi was educated at Dartford Grammar School, which meant weekend rugby union was a compulsory quid pro quo for top-notch teaching.
“That made it interesting during his time at the academy because they wanted him to also play rugby, which was a bit of a battle,” recalls Avory, the long-serving Charlton academy manager. “But he concentrated on his football and got a scholarship here and had two very good years as a scholar.
“He’s a very good lad. In fact, he called in to see me last year when he was down here with Rotherham, which is typical of him and the way he’d been brought up.
“I think football was his first love but he achieved very highly at school academically too, and the grammar school were quite insistent on him playing some rugby as well. That sometimes had to be compromised in the schoolboy years, when he would play some rugby for the school. But I remember in his last year at school, when he was playing for the under-16s, he committed to his football and he was good enough to take as a scholar.”
Equally, Ajayi’s teachers were none too keen on allowing their first XV wing-cum-outside-centre an afternoon off each week to train with Charlton.
“That held me back a bit, but it was sorted out in the end,” he smiles.
He did well in his GCSEs and began A-level biology but his studies were eventually abandoned as his sporting career came to the fore.
Things were on the up at Charlton but, after spending a year in the professional ranks, he turned down a contract extension to try his luck at Arsenal, who had spotted a player they believed they could mould.
Ajayi had impressed on trial with the Gunners, scoring in a 3-0 win for their under-21s at Blackburn, where he lined up at the heart of defence alongside now-Newcastle midfielder Isaac Hayden. That team also included current Arsenal first-teamer Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Everton winger Alex Iwobi, who is now a team-mate again with Nigeria.
With Steve Gatting’s young side short of central defenders, Arsenal offered Ajayi a two-year deal and, while the first-team breakthrough he’d hoped for never materialised, it proved an invaluable period of learning.
He was called up to train with Arsene Wenger’s squad ahead of a 2014 Champions League tie with Bayern Munich and, in the months that followed, was heavily tipped for a permanent promotion to the seniors.
It was a period he recalls fondly, both for the chance to rub shoulders with Arsenal’s stars and for the word of advice that stayed with him, most notably from World Cup-winning centre half Per Mertesacker.
“I did one year in the under-21s with Charlton and we won everything there was to win but the pathway to the first team wasn’t as clear as it was now,” he says. “So there were a lot of us doing well and not getting anywhere near the first team, so when Arsenal came calling and I had the chance to learn from some of the best coaches and play with some of the best players, it was very hard to turn down.
“I had been at Charlton for 10 or 11 years, so it was very hard to say goodbye but I took the decision and, looking back, I’m really glad I did.
“The first time I got called up to train with the (Arsenal) first team, I couldn’t believe it but I didn’t really look back. I just kept getting back to train with them all the time and I learned so much, watching them and listening to every word that the boss used to say. I learned so much from him and managed to implement that in my game.
“And playing against top-class attackers in training allowed me to test myself and that stood me in really good stead for the remainder of my career.
“Mertesacker was so good to me, always giving me pointers and tips that enabled me to be a centre back. His biggest tip was not to rely on my pace too much. Because I’ve got pace, I like to get out and deal with threats.
“But his tip was to stay in a shape, don’t go running around; organise, talk and let other people do your running. Your pace is there to get you out of trouble but you shouldn’t rely on that unless you have to. That was a really big thing.”
By January 2015, Ajayi’s displays for Gatting’s side had earned him a first senior call-up from Nigeria but in the same month came a major career setback when he was told his contract would not be extended and he was given permission to join Sunderland on trial.
He had been as an unused substitute for three Premier League matches and once in the League Cup but his vulnerability against nimble strikers persuaded Wenger that others coming through the youth ranks were brighter prospects.
“I was under the impression I was the third or fourth-choice centre back and that would be my position until I was able to break in,” says Ajayi of his departure from the Gunners. “We were talking about a new deal but in the January, they signed Gabriel Paulista.
“I was 21 and I still hadn’t made my debut, so I spoke to the boss (Wenger) and he was honest with me and said I could stay but if I could find somewhere I could go where I thought I would play, he wouldn’t stand in my way.”
The Sunderland trial did not reap rewards and a stint at Dutch giants Ajax came and went but eventually, Ajayi found a manager ready to take a chance on him when Russell Slade and Cardiff came calling.
“I took him as a little bit of a project,” admits Slade. “I saw huge potential in him because he’s athletic and a good size. He looked like a player who was willing to learn and listen. It was beneficial to him to go out on loan, one of which was to Wimbledon, and he worked with Neil Ardley, which did him good.
“I saw Semi as very much in the category of players not ready for Championship football at that time but with huge potential and improving all the time. He was athletic, he was an intelligent lad and he had a good temperament. I liked his attitude — he would always go out on loan and make sure he benefited and learned from those experiences.
“Semi is obviously a later developer. He’s had to do his learning and serve his apprenticeship in the lower leagues. He needed to work on game understanding; understanding his position and his role, seeing danger, all those things that you need as a defender and that come with added experience.”
While Cardiff gave Ajayi a new experience outside the privileged environs of Arsenal, it did not bring the first-team breakthrough he ultimately craved.
Still, though, he looks back fondly on his time in Wales — and the spells he spent back in England.
“Cardiff was good because it enabled me to get out on loan to League One or League Two (there was also a spell at Crewe) and play my first games in men’s football,” he says. “That was the reason I was able to sign for Rotherham and play. If I hadn’t had those experiences, they probably wouldn’t have taken a chance on me.”
Thankfully for Ajayi and Albion, Warne did take that chance and triggered the rapid improvement that ultimately took the player to The Hawthorns, although the Millers’ boss admits necessity was the mother of invention when he was building a new-look defence with Ajayi at its heart.
“When I took over, we were having an absolutely honking time and I was pulling in favours everywhere to see if anybody had what I wanted,” he says.
“I thought we had a problem with pace, so I spoke to a few managers. Then I spoke to Greg Halford (who was playing) at Cardiff, who knew me really well, and he said, ‘I think you’ll like this young lad. He’s raw and he needs a lot of work but he’s definitely got some pace’.
“So I spoke to (Cardiff’s manager) Neil Warnock, who I had played for and had been really good for me, and he said he wasn’t going to play there so he could come to us. Initially, I took him on loan but within a month, I’d signed him on a long-term contract because of him as a bloke.
“I am obsessed with the human being — I’m a bit of a weirdo — and I met him, signed him and loved him. He’s a really nice kid from a really nice family. He’s really close to his parents. Even now, when I speak to him, he will put his hands behind his back, like he’s speaking to a commando or something.
“As a footballer, he was really raw when he came in. He could run and was athletic but he didn’t really have a great understanding of the game. But he always bought into trying to improve. I played him in a few different positions, he never moaned. He scored goals from midfield, he would play at right-back if he had to, and he just improved really quickly in a good team.
“I used to call him Toblerone Head to start with because unless it hit the actual point, it wouldn’t go anywhere but he definitely improved on that.
“He always had a calmness about him outwardly but he came into a difficult situation, and the longer we had him, he just grew into his skin. He went from a boy to being a man. We watched him develop over two years, which was nice for us.”
Ajayi’s first season at Rotherham ended with almost inevitable relegation but he quickly became a key pillar of the Warne-inspired side that returned to the Championship at the first time of asking via the play-offs. Another relegation followed last season but Ajayi did enough, often in a midfield role, to catch the eye of a host of clubs, including Albion, who moved quickly and got their man in a cut-price deal.
He did enough, too, to secure his place in Warne’s heart, so much so that his pre-season Baggies debut — a rapid return to the New York Stadium and a meeting with his Millers team-mates — saw a ‘Welcome Home’ sign placed on the door to the visitors’ changing room by his former manager.
“When I got to Rotherham, I had played maybe 20 games in the league but they gave me a chance and I took that with both hands,” says Ajayi. “I came on leaps and bounds there and regular football was what I needed.
“I’d never really had a manager give me that chance at my permanent club. They gave me a home and I’m really grateful to Paul Warne for giving me that opportunity.”
It was an opportunity that led to a parting of the ways that left Warne feeling sad but proud.
“I couldn’t be happier for him,” says Warne. “It’s bad news for me but from a managerial or parental point of view, I look at him really proudly. And it’s an absolute steal for West Brom.
“His humility is a joke. He’s the opposite to what people think footballers are. A really down-to-earth bloke and an intelligent kid. I think he could be a doctor or something.
“He’s really solid. For instance, on Christmas Day, I let the lads have the day off but they had to send a video of them running in comedic fashion. His was him running around our stadium with his dad! Hilarious…
“But you could hold conversations with him. He was never a curser, he would never batter his team-mates, he would always encourage. I said this to him once and I meant it sincerely: if my daughter was old enough and he dated my daughter, I’d be buzzing.”
Nine games and two goals into his Albion career, Ajayi is already proving a shrewd investment.
Even in a defence that has sometimes proven flimsy, the Nigeria international has stood out as a man on an eye-catching upward career curve. He has added pace and power to the side and become one of the poster boys for this new, young side. And he has established himself back in the centre-half role that he always hoped to make his own.
“That’s where I’ve played the longest,” he says. “I’m happy to play wherever the team needs me but centre half is definitely where I feel most comfortable. Slaven Bilic being here was a big draw. I knew he was a centre half and I knew I could definitely learn a lot from him.”
Warne agrees.
“He was always a centre half in my mind but we ended up playing in a 4-1-4-1 and Semi just made the pitch look smaller when he played in midfield,” he says. “He could cover so much ground and in the Championship, we didn’t have the ball as much as in League One and he could help us out so much.
“When we didn’t have the ball, he could help out the centre backs and get across the ground gracefully but when we did have the ball, he was powerful enough to get in the box and he scored goals for us.
“His range of passing improved and if we had coached him to play with his back to goal, he could play as a striker because his finishing is really good. If anything falls to him in and around the box, he doesn’t slash at it.
“He’s got a bit of everything. When he joined us, he was always going to play because he was one of my two or three best players. He was a brilliant centre half but we were lacking something in midfield — if I could have played him at centre half and in midfield, I would have done.”
Just four years after leaving Arsenal, Ajayi’s Albion displays have got colleagues wondering just how close he can get to returning to their level.
Warne is cautiously optimistic for his former apprentice.
“He hasn’t really got much wrong with him and it wouldn’t surprise me, if he has a good season, if someone else comes in for him — a Crystal Palace or a Watford — because everyone wants pace,” he says. “You can afford to leave him one-on-one on the halfway line because we knew no-one in League One or the Championship was going to outrun him.
“I don’t expect him to leave West Brom for £50 million, I’m not that stupid, but if he does well and West Brom don’t go up, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of the teams that do go up have a look at him.
“Everybody wants centre halves with pace, and if he can go to West Brom and improve another 10 percent, why shouldn’t he make another step up?”
Bilic, too, recognises the potential for further improvement in his defensive star.
“That’s why we got him,” says the Croatian. “He’s still young, but not really young — he’s at a top age. He’s good on the ball — he can receive the ball in those tight areas, which is always good. He’s got pace, which is not easy to find in those positions.
“It’s totally down to him. He has a very bright future, he’s a regular for Nigeria. The world is open for him. He looks focused and steady. He’s ready to listen to you. That’s why he’s always improving.”
He was lauded at Charlton Athletic, promoted but ultimately rejected by Arsenal, and eventually nurtured at Rotherham United.
Now, West Bromwich Albion are reaping the rewards of a player who took more than a decade to fully blossom but seems hell bent on making up for lost time.
The 25-year-old scored his second goal in nine days on Sunday as Albion beat Huddersfield Town 4-2 to further cement his place as a darling of Baggies fans. And they can thank Rotherham manager Paul Warne and some slices of fortune for delivering them a £1.5 million bargain that is already reaping handsome dividends.
Ajayi’s career is on a steep upward trajectory after bumping along in the ‘untapped talent’ zone until Warne took a chance on a Cardiff cast-off with rich potential two-and-a-half years ago.
“This might sound an awful thing to say but it was kind of a case of beggars not being choosers,” admits Warne of his decision to sign Ajayi in January 2017, with his side rock bottom of the Championship. “At Christmas, we only had 10 points in the Championship, so it wasn’t as though we had a queue of unbelievable centre halves queuing up to join us.
“But I knew what type of player I wanted and I knew what type of bloke I wanted, and he was both of them. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. It can happen that you have talent but if you’re fifth-choice centre half, you’re not going to play every week and it becomes difficult. Sometimes, if you drop down a level and then down a level again until you’re a key figure and you’re playing every week, you can become a different player. Sometimes, you need a really good loan or to drop a level to move forward.”
Ajayi’s life is a tale of moves, both forward and backward.
The son of Nigerian parents growing up in south east London, Ajayi describes himself as “obsessed with football” in his formative years.
“I always had a ball at my feet and I got to seven or eight and my mum and dad thought I had join a team because I was always in the house breaking stuff,” he tells The Athletic. “They sent me to my first Sunday league team and at nine, I got spotted by Charlton.
“I got a really good education there and had really good schooling from the likes of Steve Avory and Steve Gritt (former academy manager).”
Ajayi’s career progressed impressively at The Valley as a member of a team that reached the last eight of the FA Youth Cup (in 2011-12) but had his teachers had their way, he might have been lost to football at an early age.
Academically bright, the young Ajayi was educated at Dartford Grammar School, which meant weekend rugby union was a compulsory quid pro quo for top-notch teaching.
“That made it interesting during his time at the academy because they wanted him to also play rugby, which was a bit of a battle,” recalls Avory, the long-serving Charlton academy manager. “But he concentrated on his football and got a scholarship here and had two very good years as a scholar.
“He’s a very good lad. In fact, he called in to see me last year when he was down here with Rotherham, which is typical of him and the way he’d been brought up.
“I think football was his first love but he achieved very highly at school academically too, and the grammar school were quite insistent on him playing some rugby as well. That sometimes had to be compromised in the schoolboy years, when he would play some rugby for the school. But I remember in his last year at school, when he was playing for the under-16s, he committed to his football and he was good enough to take as a scholar.”
Equally, Ajayi’s teachers were none too keen on allowing their first XV wing-cum-outside-centre an afternoon off each week to train with Charlton.
“That held me back a bit, but it was sorted out in the end,” he smiles.
He did well in his GCSEs and began A-level biology but his studies were eventually abandoned as his sporting career came to the fore.
Things were on the up at Charlton but, after spending a year in the professional ranks, he turned down a contract extension to try his luck at Arsenal, who had spotted a player they believed they could mould.
Ajayi had impressed on trial with the Gunners, scoring in a 3-0 win for their under-21s at Blackburn, where he lined up at the heart of defence alongside now-Newcastle midfielder Isaac Hayden. That team also included current Arsenal first-teamer Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Everton winger Alex Iwobi, who is now a team-mate again with Nigeria.
With Steve Gatting’s young side short of central defenders, Arsenal offered Ajayi a two-year deal and, while the first-team breakthrough he’d hoped for never materialised, it proved an invaluable period of learning.
He was called up to train with Arsene Wenger’s squad ahead of a 2014 Champions League tie with Bayern Munich and, in the months that followed, was heavily tipped for a permanent promotion to the seniors.
It was a period he recalls fondly, both for the chance to rub shoulders with Arsenal’s stars and for the word of advice that stayed with him, most notably from World Cup-winning centre half Per Mertesacker.
“I did one year in the under-21s with Charlton and we won everything there was to win but the pathway to the first team wasn’t as clear as it was now,” he says. “So there were a lot of us doing well and not getting anywhere near the first team, so when Arsenal came calling and I had the chance to learn from some of the best coaches and play with some of the best players, it was very hard to turn down.
“I had been at Charlton for 10 or 11 years, so it was very hard to say goodbye but I took the decision and, looking back, I’m really glad I did.
“The first time I got called up to train with the (Arsenal) first team, I couldn’t believe it but I didn’t really look back. I just kept getting back to train with them all the time and I learned so much, watching them and listening to every word that the boss used to say. I learned so much from him and managed to implement that in my game.
“And playing against top-class attackers in training allowed me to test myself and that stood me in really good stead for the remainder of my career.
“Mertesacker was so good to me, always giving me pointers and tips that enabled me to be a centre back. His biggest tip was not to rely on my pace too much. Because I’ve got pace, I like to get out and deal with threats.
“But his tip was to stay in a shape, don’t go running around; organise, talk and let other people do your running. Your pace is there to get you out of trouble but you shouldn’t rely on that unless you have to. That was a really big thing.”
By January 2015, Ajayi’s displays for Gatting’s side had earned him a first senior call-up from Nigeria but in the same month came a major career setback when he was told his contract would not be extended and he was given permission to join Sunderland on trial.
He had been as an unused substitute for three Premier League matches and once in the League Cup but his vulnerability against nimble strikers persuaded Wenger that others coming through the youth ranks were brighter prospects.
“I was under the impression I was the third or fourth-choice centre back and that would be my position until I was able to break in,” says Ajayi of his departure from the Gunners. “We were talking about a new deal but in the January, they signed Gabriel Paulista.
“I was 21 and I still hadn’t made my debut, so I spoke to the boss (Wenger) and he was honest with me and said I could stay but if I could find somewhere I could go where I thought I would play, he wouldn’t stand in my way.”
The Sunderland trial did not reap rewards and a stint at Dutch giants Ajax came and went but eventually, Ajayi found a manager ready to take a chance on him when Russell Slade and Cardiff came calling.
“I took him as a little bit of a project,” admits Slade. “I saw huge potential in him because he’s athletic and a good size. He looked like a player who was willing to learn and listen. It was beneficial to him to go out on loan, one of which was to Wimbledon, and he worked with Neil Ardley, which did him good.
“I saw Semi as very much in the category of players not ready for Championship football at that time but with huge potential and improving all the time. He was athletic, he was an intelligent lad and he had a good temperament. I liked his attitude — he would always go out on loan and make sure he benefited and learned from those experiences.
“Semi is obviously a later developer. He’s had to do his learning and serve his apprenticeship in the lower leagues. He needed to work on game understanding; understanding his position and his role, seeing danger, all those things that you need as a defender and that come with added experience.”
While Cardiff gave Ajayi a new experience outside the privileged environs of Arsenal, it did not bring the first-team breakthrough he ultimately craved.
Still, though, he looks back fondly on his time in Wales — and the spells he spent back in England.
“Cardiff was good because it enabled me to get out on loan to League One or League Two (there was also a spell at Crewe) and play my first games in men’s football,” he says. “That was the reason I was able to sign for Rotherham and play. If I hadn’t had those experiences, they probably wouldn’t have taken a chance on me.”
Thankfully for Ajayi and Albion, Warne did take that chance and triggered the rapid improvement that ultimately took the player to The Hawthorns, although the Millers’ boss admits necessity was the mother of invention when he was building a new-look defence with Ajayi at its heart.
“When I took over, we were having an absolutely honking time and I was pulling in favours everywhere to see if anybody had what I wanted,” he says.
“I thought we had a problem with pace, so I spoke to a few managers. Then I spoke to Greg Halford (who was playing) at Cardiff, who knew me really well, and he said, ‘I think you’ll like this young lad. He’s raw and he needs a lot of work but he’s definitely got some pace’.
“So I spoke to (Cardiff’s manager) Neil Warnock, who I had played for and had been really good for me, and he said he wasn’t going to play there so he could come to us. Initially, I took him on loan but within a month, I’d signed him on a long-term contract because of him as a bloke.
“I am obsessed with the human being — I’m a bit of a weirdo — and I met him, signed him and loved him. He’s a really nice kid from a really nice family. He’s really close to his parents. Even now, when I speak to him, he will put his hands behind his back, like he’s speaking to a commando or something.
“As a footballer, he was really raw when he came in. He could run and was athletic but he didn’t really have a great understanding of the game. But he always bought into trying to improve. I played him in a few different positions, he never moaned. He scored goals from midfield, he would play at right-back if he had to, and he just improved really quickly in a good team.
“I used to call him Toblerone Head to start with because unless it hit the actual point, it wouldn’t go anywhere but he definitely improved on that.
“He always had a calmness about him outwardly but he came into a difficult situation, and the longer we had him, he just grew into his skin. He went from a boy to being a man. We watched him develop over two years, which was nice for us.”
Ajayi’s first season at Rotherham ended with almost inevitable relegation but he quickly became a key pillar of the Warne-inspired side that returned to the Championship at the first time of asking via the play-offs. Another relegation followed last season but Ajayi did enough, often in a midfield role, to catch the eye of a host of clubs, including Albion, who moved quickly and got their man in a cut-price deal.
He did enough, too, to secure his place in Warne’s heart, so much so that his pre-season Baggies debut — a rapid return to the New York Stadium and a meeting with his Millers team-mates — saw a ‘Welcome Home’ sign placed on the door to the visitors’ changing room by his former manager.
“When I got to Rotherham, I had played maybe 20 games in the league but they gave me a chance and I took that with both hands,” says Ajayi. “I came on leaps and bounds there and regular football was what I needed.
“I’d never really had a manager give me that chance at my permanent club. They gave me a home and I’m really grateful to Paul Warne for giving me that opportunity.”
It was an opportunity that led to a parting of the ways that left Warne feeling sad but proud.
“I couldn’t be happier for him,” says Warne. “It’s bad news for me but from a managerial or parental point of view, I look at him really proudly. And it’s an absolute steal for West Brom.
“His humility is a joke. He’s the opposite to what people think footballers are. A really down-to-earth bloke and an intelligent kid. I think he could be a doctor or something.
“He’s really solid. For instance, on Christmas Day, I let the lads have the day off but they had to send a video of them running in comedic fashion. His was him running around our stadium with his dad! Hilarious…
“But you could hold conversations with him. He was never a curser, he would never batter his team-mates, he would always encourage. I said this to him once and I meant it sincerely: if my daughter was old enough and he dated my daughter, I’d be buzzing.”
Nine games and two goals into his Albion career, Ajayi is already proving a shrewd investment.
Even in a defence that has sometimes proven flimsy, the Nigeria international has stood out as a man on an eye-catching upward career curve. He has added pace and power to the side and become one of the poster boys for this new, young side. And he has established himself back in the centre-half role that he always hoped to make his own.
“That’s where I’ve played the longest,” he says. “I’m happy to play wherever the team needs me but centre half is definitely where I feel most comfortable. Slaven Bilic being here was a big draw. I knew he was a centre half and I knew I could definitely learn a lot from him.”
Warne agrees.
“He was always a centre half in my mind but we ended up playing in a 4-1-4-1 and Semi just made the pitch look smaller when he played in midfield,” he says. “He could cover so much ground and in the Championship, we didn’t have the ball as much as in League One and he could help us out so much.
“When we didn’t have the ball, he could help out the centre backs and get across the ground gracefully but when we did have the ball, he was powerful enough to get in the box and he scored goals for us.
“His range of passing improved and if we had coached him to play with his back to goal, he could play as a striker because his finishing is really good. If anything falls to him in and around the box, he doesn’t slash at it.
“He’s got a bit of everything. When he joined us, he was always going to play because he was one of my two or three best players. He was a brilliant centre half but we were lacking something in midfield — if I could have played him at centre half and in midfield, I would have done.”
Just four years after leaving Arsenal, Ajayi’s Albion displays have got colleagues wondering just how close he can get to returning to their level.
Warne is cautiously optimistic for his former apprentice.
“He hasn’t really got much wrong with him and it wouldn’t surprise me, if he has a good season, if someone else comes in for him — a Crystal Palace or a Watford — because everyone wants pace,” he says. “You can afford to leave him one-on-one on the halfway line because we knew no-one in League One or the Championship was going to outrun him.
“I don’t expect him to leave West Brom for £50 million, I’m not that stupid, but if he does well and West Brom don’t go up, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of the teams that do go up have a look at him.
“Everybody wants centre halves with pace, and if he can go to West Brom and improve another 10 percent, why shouldn’t he make another step up?”
Bilic, too, recognises the potential for further improvement in his defensive star.
“That’s why we got him,” says the Croatian. “He’s still young, but not really young — he’s at a top age. He’s good on the ball — he can receive the ball in those tight areas, which is always good. He’s got pace, which is not easy to find in those positions.
“It’s totally down to him. He has a very bright future, he’s a regular for Nigeria. The world is open for him. He looks focused and steady. He’s ready to listen to you. That’s why he’s always improving.”
We don't want to knock him!
