Super Eagles’ defender, Semilore Ajayi was in ecstatic mood late Saturday, as he was part of the squad that helped Hull City FC gain promotion back to the English Premier League with a stunning 3-1 victory over Middlesbrough at Wembley Stadium.
Sports247 reports that Ajayi starred in the thick of defence for the former club of Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha and Ola Aina, as Oli McBurnie’s stoppage-time goal gave The Tigers a dramatic win in the Championship play-off final.
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The victory for Ajayi’s team came over a Middlesbrough side that got into the final through ‘the backdoor,’ after Southampton, who beat them over two legs in the semi-final, were expelled on Tuesday for an infamous ‘Spygate Scandal.’
Saturday’s win ended Hull’s nine-year wait for top-flight football and continued their perfect record in Championship play-off finals, each with a 1-0 scoreline, a year after they avoided relegation to League One on goal difference.
Former Bosnia international, Sergej Jakirović, who took over as the coach of Ajayi’s team last summer, also pulled off a historic feat of taking the East Yorkshire side up to the EPL during his first season in English football.
Hull, who claimed the last play-off place on the final day of the regular season, in part thanks to Middlesbrough drawing with Arthur Okonkwo’s Wrexham, built their success on both their expected goals for and against.
Ajayi got 7.5 points on the players’ scorecards for Saturday’s game, as the former Rotherham United, Cardiff City and West Bromwich Albion stopper, whose full name is Oluwasemilogo Adesewo Ibidapo Ajayi, finally gets a chance to play in the EPL.
He made the Arsenal bench four times during the EPL’s 2014/2015 season, but was an unused substitute in games against Hull, Stoke City and Newcastle United as well as in the home League Cup defeat by Southampton.
