His dream has always been to play in the Premier League since being signed by Liverpool but getting a place in the star-studded Reds’ side and also securing a work permit have been issues culminating in going on a seven-loan spell to various European clubs before finally being sold to German Bundesliga side-Union Berlin. However, succour has finally come the way of the Super Eagles striker to achieve his dream with newly promoted side, Nottingham Forest that is ready to cough out a club record signing of £17.5m for the signature of the Nigerian international
After his exploits with the Golden Eaglets of Nigeria at the 2013 U-17 World Cup, he was seen as one of the youngest talents in world football, which led to scrambling for his signature by big European clubs. In 2015, Taiwo Adeniyi joined Liverpool and had a dream of making an impact with the Merseyside giant, but it was not to be as he never got the chance to lace his boots for the Anfield side for once in a competitive game.
All that have however changed now with Nottingham Forest set to pay £17.5m to sign the striker, and with the Imperial Academy product already granted a work permit by the UK government, he can jolly well say, ‘Premier League here I come’.
Awoniyi on Wednesday waved goodbye to his Union Berlin teammates ahead of his move to Premier League club, Nottingham Forest.
Awoniyi is expected to complete his transfer to the Premier League new boys this week.
Nottingham Forest will pay £17.5m to sign the striker from the capital club.
Awoniyi, according to a report in dnachricten.de visited his Union Berlin teammates on the first day of pre-season to say goodbye to them.
Head Coach, Urs Fischer, however, declined to comment on the situation.
“I saw him, but please don’t dig deeper now. I won’t say anything about that,”Fischer told the website Awoniyi missed the sports medical examination and the performance tests on Monday and Tuesday, further proving he is leaving the club.
The 24-year-old was Union Berlin’s top scorer with 20 goals in all competitions last season.
Awoniyi was one of just six players to have preceded Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool and still was at the club when they won the Premier League.
The difference between him and the likes of Joe Gomez, James Milner, Jordan Henderson, Roberto Firmino and Divock Origi is that he never played a game.
On paper, the 24-year-old should be an experienced Premier League player for Forrest having spent the same amount of years at Liverpool as Sadio Mane.
But while Mane has now departed for Bayern Munich after a glittering trophy haul during six seasons on Merseyside, Awoniyi’s first experience of playing at Anfield will come with Forest.
However, that is through no fault of his own as the talented striker consistently struggled to secure a work permit at Liverpool.
Awoniyi had very humble beginnings in Nigeria, having had to get creative in order to have football boots to play in as a youngster.
After impressing at the Imperial Soccer Academy, Liverpool swooped to sign him for a cut-price £400,000 back in 2015.
But while Awoniyi waited on a work permit, he was farmed out on loan to FSV Frankfurt, NEC Nijmegen, Royal Excel Mouscron, Gent and Klopp’s former club Mainz.
Yet, it was at Union Berlin where the forward finally started to find his feet and even drew comparisons to Erling Haaland.
“I think he’s found his level there, he’s what you would call a utility player, so he is perfect for the role they’ve given him. He works quite well for the Union Berlin system, which is also kind of direct, a lot of vertical passes, he makes a number of runs behind the backline,” German football expert Constanin Eckner told Blood Red.
“In a way he reminds me of Erling Haaland with the runs he makes behind the line.
“Of course, he’s nowhere near the level of Erling Haaland, but just his style is somewhat similar, and he’s a good, not great poacher inside the box, he’s a decent finisher at least.”
Awoniyi ultimately turned his loan to Berlin into a permanent £6.5m move last summer but not before he had the chance to link up with Liverpool for their pre-season camp in Austria.
And it gave him the chance to finally work under Klopp and also receive one of the German’s famous bear-hug greetings.
“He said ‘What took you so long?!’ To be honest, I have always been thinking about working with him. Even when I was at FSV Frankfurt and he had not signed for Liverpool yet, my teammates there would always say that they wanted to play under him,” Awoniyi told GOAL in December.
“I was wondering why, really curious as to what he would be like. Then, when he signed for Liverpool, I was thinking ‘Wow! Maybe one day I will have my opportunity to meet him.’ And the first time I met him, I realised everything they said about him was true; the smile, the passion, everything he brings to the game.”
Awoniyi then began his second stint in Berlin in style, scoring in three successive matches on route to notching 15 Bundesliga goals.
He helped the club earn Europa League qualification and could even be set for a quick reunion with Forest due to play Die Eisernen in a pre-season friendly next month.
It’ll be his first showdown with Liverpool that’ll grab the headlines in the coming months.
And despite the fact that if things had been different, Awoniyi could have been lining up under Klopp next season, the attacker has no regrets about how his career has panned out.
“Life is a journey. Everyone has different steps to take and routes to follow. Our destinies are different,” he told Tribal Football.
Taiwo Awoniyi has told TribalFootball.com that he has no regrets over joining Liverpool.The Nigerian forward was…
“I signed for Liverpool at a period in my young career as a footballer; when I did not understand how it works with work permit issues, but at the end we are still here talking about it.
“It shows that I did not make a bad decision to sign for Liverpool. I have always said that Liverpool is one of the best things that happened to me as a footballer.
“They gave me the platform to achieve my dream and with them I have no regret at all.
“I do not see not being able to play a game in the Premier League as a regret because in life, with time, everything is still possible.”
And in lesser time than he could have imagined, Awoniyi is set to turn that possibility into reality.
“It’s been a long process but finally Taiwo Awoniyi can now focus on his career somewhere in England. He has the ambition to play in the Premier League,” a top official at Imperial Academy told BBC Sport Africa.
Meanwhile, Liverpool are poised to net just shy of £2 million with their former forward Taiwo Awoniyi on the verge of joining Nottingham Forrest.
Awoniyi never made a single senior appearance for Liverpool despite joining the club in 2015 as he was unable to gain a UK work permit. However, now that he has featured on the international scene with Nigeria, that is no longer an issue as he is set to return to the Premier League.
