“I was really upset, to be honest. It didn’t break me because I’m still here but at the time I remember feeling heartbroken because I knew really that was my opportunity to properly kick on. It was a back injury and I was out for about four months. Even to this day, I remember that exact feeling. It was a hard one to take.”
Sheyi Ojo is recalling the moment when an injury derailed his Liverpool career just as it seemed to be taking off. The winger had joined the club for £2million ($2.5m in today’s exchange rates) from Milton Keynes Dons as a 14-year-old boy blessed with dazzling natural talent.
“He’s as good as I’ve seen at that age,” gushed Karl Robinson, MK Don’s manager to the BBC at the time.
After he started training with Liverpool’s first team aged 15, Ojo finally got his chance under Jurgen Klopp at the start of 2016, scoring a superb goal on his Anfield debut against Exeter City in the FA Cup.
He went on to make eight appearances for Klopp’s side in the Premier League that season — they finished eighth — and was on the bench for the 4-3 Europa League victory over Borussia Dortmund at Anfield.
Eager to kick on the following campaign, Ojo joined up with Liverpool for their pre-season tour just days after playing for England Under-19s in the European Championship. On that tour in the States, Ojo was described by Klopp as a “wonderful player” whose future was “100 per cent at Liverpool” as he deliberated whether to send him out on loan for the next season or not.
That momentum was halted when he fractured his back.
After working his way back to fitness during the 2016-2017 season — and being part of the England Under-20 World Cup-winning side in the summer of 2017 — he made the odd appearance for Klopp’s side but was never able to nail down a starting place, as his career turned into a succession of loans, new managers, new team-mates and different styles.
Determined to rediscover his love of football, Ojo joined Maribor in Slovenia on a permanent move from Cardiff City this summer after a tough spell last season on loan at Belgian club KV Kortrijk, owned by Vincent Tan.
“If I’m honest, I didn’t enjoy football last season,” Ojo told The Athletic from Slovenia. “I was playing out of position the majority of the time, at wing-back. Not just for me, but for the club as well, it was a very frustrating season.
“Over the last two years, I have not enjoyed football in the way I would have wanted to. I guess that was the main motivation for coming here, because the plan and the vision they set out for me was pretty clear: they just wanted to see me play with a smile on my face and show everyone and myself how good I really am. So it felt like the perfect opportunity to do that.”
Ojo is beginning to find his feet at his new home, starting in the ‘Eternal Derby’ against Olimpija last weekend, a 0-0 draw that saw both sides end the game with 10 men. The draw leaves Maribor three points behind their bitter rivals at the top of the league.
For Ojo, life at Maribor, Slovenia’s second-largest city, is a long way from Liverpool, the club he joined as a teenager after a bidding war between some of the biggest clubs in Europe to sign him.
“At the time, it wasn’t really pressure,” he said. “I think the main pressure I had on myself was to make sure, by the time I was 17 or 18, I was in the first team. That was the only real challenge I set out for myself. But other than that, when you’re young, you enjoy football a lot easier, there’s way less distractions and pressures that comes with it.”
He said making the move to Liverpool showed him the importance of having a strong mentality to succeed at the very top level.
“I learnt the level of consistency, even in training, the attention to detail,” he explained. “I remember my first training session with the first team, I was 15, and I remember the intensity of the pass, the movement in behind for an attacking player, all the little small things you wouldn’t think are a big deal but then at that level, every little detail counts. That’s the level at the biggest clubs, every day is like a game pretty much.”
He cited Roberto Firmino as the shining example of a player who was always perfect in training, the embodiment of Klopp’s ‘mentality monsters’, who went on to win the Premier League and Champions League. “I had really nice memories of playing for Klopp,” he said. “Everything feels easier when you’re playing with the best players, I was enjoying my football.”
Yet after that back injury and with question marks over his sharpness and consistency, he was sent out on loan seven times: Wigan, Wolves, Fulham, Reims, Rangers, Cardiff and Millwall.
“It’s never easy, it’s like going to a new job,” he said. “You’ve got to meet new people; every coach I’ve played under has played football in a completely different way, they want and demand (different) things from me. I’ve played in different positions so you’ve got to adapt and still somehow keep your own identity within that and sometimes it’s not as straightforward as people think it is.
“It’s been challenging and frustrating at times because I never really had that consistency of having one manager and one system, but it’s taught me a lot.”
He said his best loan was his time at Fulham, the 2017-18 season when they achieved promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs under Slavisa Jokanovic. He also enjoyed his spell at Rangers where he played under Steven Gerrard. Shortly after arriving at Rangers in July 2019, Gerrard told reporters: “Sheyi has got all the attributes and if this doesn’t work, it will be because of Sheyi.”
At Rangers, he scored five goals in 36 games, but after an excellent start that included a winning goal against Feyenoord in the Europa League, his time there fizzled out, with consistency a problem again. What did he learn from Liverpool’s former captain?
“Probably giving you the confidence to play,” he replied. “He knew a lot about the players he brought in, he knew me from Liverpool, we had a good relationship. He was honest, sometimes he’d say, ‘You can do more’, sometimes he’d say, ‘Well done’, sometimes he’d be p***ed off because we lost a game or whatever, he was very direct and honest with how he felt.
“Sometimes you need that in football as there’s a lot of sugar-coating. I think he’s a top manager and I think he’s definitely going to prove to be an even better manager in the future than he’s already shown.”
And as for the worst period on loan?
“I struggled, especially mentally, when I was at Reims, in France; it was my first time going abroad. The players didn’t speak English, the coach didn’t speak English, I got a few injuries that season too and I was very isolated. It was definitely a hard time in my career.”
After signing permanently for Cardiff when his contract ended at Liverpool in the summer of 2022, Ojo was sent out on another tough loan last season, to Kortrijk, with four different managers over the course of a tricky campaign.
Now at Maribor, he is hoping to revive his career and has already built a strong rapport with his new team-mates, especially Ghana’s Benjamin Tetteh, who played one season at Hull City in the Championship. There is still the nagging sense of unfulfilled potential though.
“One hundred per cent. I still don’t think I’ve fully shown how good I really am,” said the 27-year-old. “I guess that’s the main reason I’ve come to Slovenia, just to have a season where I can play football and enjoy it after so many inconsistencies and managers changing. I think that’s very important for me at the stage I’m at in my career now.”
His dream is to get back playing at the highest level, with the Champions League a long-held ambition. Now older, wiser and more experienced, what advice would he give his younger self starting on his footballing journey?
“I’d probably say to just try to keep my identity because I feel I’ve changed elements of my game to fit certain teams that I’ve gone on loan to,” he said. “I’ve never really played like myself since I was a little kid, I guess that would be my main thing: to play off instinct, rather than what a manager is telling you to do.
“All the best games I’ve played have been purely off instinct. When I’ve listened to instructions to stay wide, or to come inside, or run in behind or whatever, obviously I understand it’s tactical advice from the coaching staff but ultimately I’m at my best when I’m free and able to express myself.”
Away from football, some people have speculated that Ojo is Dide, the anonymous masked rapper who claims to be a Premier League footballer, a theory that he rejects.
“It’s funny because everywhere I go people ask me about it but honestly I haven’t got a clue who it is,” he said. “All I can say is I’m super focused on football as I always have been, that’s pretty much the only thing that matters to me. I wouldn’t be putting anything else in the picture to sway my concentration, it’s definitely not something I’m involved in but I understand everyone’s curiosities.”
For now, though, Ojo is determined to make his mark in Slovenia and fall in love with football again.
“Every journey is different, I’ve been on a crazy rollercoaster, gone on loan to different places, I don’t think that’s helped me,” he said.
“But I’ve got to take accountability as well, I can definitely do more, be more consistent, hopefully now I’m in a stable environment where there’s consistency, I can show everyone and show myself how good I can be and kick on.
“I’ve still got a lot of time in the game left, so I want to have a positive next 10 years of my career.”
(Top photo by Paul Greenwood/CameraSport via Getty Images)
