Scunthorpe Utd: Knill backs Ajose to prove quality at Iron
Alan Knill has backed under-fire loan signing Nicky Ajose to prove his quality at Scunthorpe United, amid growing frustration from the terraces.
The Iron manager had hoped the 20-year-old forward would prove to be ‘the final piece of the jigsaw’ when he moved to Glanford Park from Championship side Peterborough just under a month ago.
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TOUGH TIME: Nicky Ajose
But five matches into his three-month stint at Glanford Park, Ajose has struggled to make the desired impact.
He has so far started just twice and was jeered by a
section of the home crowd when substituted during
the Iron’s 3-2 home defeat by Leyton Orient almost a fortnight ago.
But Knill is confident he can restore the player’s confidence in time for him to make the sort of impact he expects.
“No-one is more disappointed than Nicky that he hasn’t made the impact people expected,” the United boss told the Telegraph.
“We’re all disappointed and probably we built him up too much, but we’ve seen what he’s like.
“He can score out of nothing, or he’ll do something that makes you say ‘brilliant’.
“It’s a difficult time for him, but the way to help him is to sit down and talk to him.
“He’s only 20, but we need to quickly find a solution to get him over whatever it is that’s happened and then when it happens again he’ll be better equipped to deal with it.”
Knill said Ajose’s fitness was ‘okay’, but it’s clear the player has been hampered by a
hamstring injury suffered just 25 minutes into his Posh debut on the opening day of the campaign.
The Iron boss believes the move to London Road – where he was signed to replace star striker Craig Mackail-Smith – is another reason why the former Manchester United youngster’s form has
suffered.
“The good thing about Nicky is he’s willing to work on his game and do extra to keep fit to get back to what we know he can do,” he continued.
“It’s been quite a difficult time for him.
“It’s been a big move, he’s a young lad and sometimes the expectation weighs heavy on a young person’s shoulders. But I’m quite sure he’ll come out the other end.
“The ideal scenario would have been for him to have gone to Peterborough, done fantastic and then everybody loves you. Unfortunately, that’s not always how it works.
“For one reason or another, he’s had a loss of form at
Peterborough and now he has to get that back.
“They loaned him to us for us to help him and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
2 Comments
by EddieMurphy
Thursday, October 20 2011, 10:22AM
“Hopefully he will improve quickly, but you do have to wonder how long we give him - do we keep an underperforming player in and around the team in the hope that he'll get his form back, when we know he's due to return to Peterborough in a couple of months? If so, it probably won't do us much good, but it may well mean that we hand back a player just as he comes in to form while continuing our stuttering form and denying our own forwards the opportunity to play. Unless, of course, he's right at it in the next game or so. Knill obviously thinks he's something special and hopefully he'll show it soon, but it does seem that he's had way too much pressure put on him at such a young age by our management.”
by booshy89
Thursday, October 20 2011, 10:03AM
“"Probably we built him up too much"...?!
Even if he was as good as they've always raved about, it still buts a lot of hopes and expectations on someone, which could never have been good...
Just hope he does begin to fit in and find a bit of form...”