Born on this day in 1997 is former Sunderland flop and a man once dubbed the ‘English Pogba’ Ovie Ejaria.
Ejaria was an Arsenal fan as a youngster, spending nine years at the Gunners’ youth setup before moving to Liverpool. He struggled to get into the first team, but impressed at Under-21 levels and received praise for his dynamism, power and tenacity.
Sunderland was his first loan move in an attempt to gain more senior minutes, arriving on Deadline Day in January 2018. We were in the middle of a relegation scrap under Chris Coleman, and before Ejaria signed our midfield consisted of Darron Gibson and Didier Ndong. Safe to say fans thought he was an upgrade on the pair.
On the move, Ejaria said: “I’m really happy because I’ve wanted to go out on loan for a while to get regular first-team football under my belt. I’d say that I’m a player that likes to get on the ball quite a lot and make things happen. I'll try to create chances and hopefully score some goals as well. I’ll always give one hundred percent and work hard for the team.”
Coleman, who was a long-time admirer of the midfielder, said: “Ovie is a talented young player with strength and imagination on the ball. He’s here to join our fight and has shown me how motivated he is to be here – and I’m sure he’s ready for the challenges ahead.”
But as we all know, Sunderland went down with a whimper and Ejaria was pretty ineffectual in the middle of the park. In 11 games his only contribution came on the last day of the season, as we inexplicably smashed champions Wolves 3-0.
Fans weren’t exactly gutted when he went back to Liverpool in the summer, although Steven Gerrard’s Liverpool links meant he was loaned to Rangers that summer before later joining Reading. It was initially on loan before the Royals made the deal permanent.
He’s played more than 100 games (including his loan spell) for the club. When ALS interviewed Olly from the Tilehurst End, this is what he said about Ejaria: “He is currently out injured, which has been a fairly big problem throughout his time with us – he also spent four months of last season on the sidelines. Ovie is one of the most exciting yet frustrating players to watch. He is capable of magical pieces of skill and often you have no idea how he manages to wriggle his way out of being pressed by three opponents. But too often in a Reading shirt he has been anonymous and underwhelming. He won the game completely by himself with two amazing goals at Fulham away last year, but didn’t score again – or even provide an assist – for the rest of the season.”
Ultimately Ovie was a young lad who was thrown into the wrong environment for a loan player to succeed. It wasn't really his fault that the move didn't work out - no player could have gone into that Sunderland squad and saved it single-handedly.
