Ajayi has only 250 minutes for the club currently 23rd in the League One table.
Doncaster Rovers manager Grant McCann announced today that his club will terminate the loans of four players when the January window opens, and one of those players is young Tottenham Hotspur academy graduate and fullback Damola Ajayi. McCann stated that the club will opt not to retain Ajayi, sending him back to Spurs where he will presumably be loaned out again.
“The two young lads, they need to play football and they probably haven’t played the amount of football they feel they need. Our remit here is to let them go and play and we’ll look to replace.
“Damola has been really unfortunate. We see every single day in training the ability that he’s got but he’s up against the best right winger in the league, in my opinion, Luke Molyneux.
“When we build a squad in the summer, we pick a group that can come in and compete with the rest of the players. It’s not about having 12 players in to start. January is different – you need to be bringing players in that are going into your team. We’ve done that really well over the last couple of years.
“We’ll look to replace the four lads and have a strong 2026.”
— Grant McCann, Doncaster manager
It does seem like Ajayi has been a victim of being behind a very good player. Damola has played in 11 matches with only one start and tallied a total of 250 minutes in the first half of the League One season. Rovers are currently second from the bottom in the table in 23rd position, but only 3 points away from 15th, as it’s a relatively tight league in the bottom half.
Ajayi is considered one of the talents of Spurs’ academy, but it’s clear he’s not going to get the football he needs at Doncaster. I don’t see him making the leap from barely playing in League 1 to being a reliable backup in the Premier League, so a secondary loan seems much more likely than sticking around Spurs and barely playing. Hopefully he’ll land with another club where he can get minutes.
Category: General Sports
