Super Eagles striker Taiwo Awoniyi has reflected on a career journey that tested him at every stage, crediting his six years at Liverpool and the seven loan spells that came with it for giving him the mental tools to eventually make it in the Premier League, Footynaija.com reports.
Awoniyi joined Liverpool as an 18-year-old in August 2015 for around £400,000, arriving fresh from winning the Golden Boot at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in New Zealand. But he never played a single game for the club.
Work permit issues meant he spent six years being sent from one country to the next, turning out for FSV Frankfurt in Germany, NEC Nijmegen in the Netherlands, Mouscron and Gent in Belgium, Mainz in Germany, and finally Union Berlin, where he scored 20 goals in 43 appearances and earned a permanent move followed by a £17 million transfer to Nottingham Forest in 2022.
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What looked from the outside like a career being passed around eventually revealed itself as preparation.
The 28-year-old has now returned to something close to full fitness after a terrifying intestinal injury last May, which required emergency surgery and ruled him out for the remainder of last season.
His recovery has been slow but steady, and with new Forest manager Vitor Pereira giving him a fresh opportunity, he has been reflecting on how he arrived here in the first place.
“Being with Liverpool helped me be who I am today as well. Like I said, I always wanted to play in the Premier League and play in England, and in joining Liverpool I had that opportunity,” Awoniyi said in a report by Nottingham Forest official website.
“I was hoping to play, but it didn’t happen, so I had to go on loan, which was challenging. I had a number of loans in different countries, but it helped me to understand different cultures and different people.”
He was equally clear about what that period taught him about himself.
“I was still young and going through it with the hope of making it in the Premier League. The loans helped me develop as a player, but after all those moves I said to myself that that would be the last,” he added.
Forest are currently fighting to preserve their Europa League quarter-final place against Fenerbahce, and Pereira will be hoping Awoniyi’s experience and hunger can give the squad something different in the final weeks of the season.
