Ade Akinbiyi

Ade Akinbiyi

Personal information
Full name	Adeola Peter Oluwatoyin Akinbiyi
Height	6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Position(s)	Striker
Team information
Current team	Burnley
Number	9
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 19:23, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Adeola Peter Oluwatoyin "Ade" Akinbiyi (born October 10, 1974 in Hackney, London) is an English-born Nigerian footballer. He plays for Burnley in the Championship.

Playing career

Early career

Akinbiyi has had a much-travelled career with many different clubs with transfer fees totalling almost £16 million. He began his career as a trainee at Norwich City, where he worked his way up into the first team in 1992. He made his début on November 3, 1993 as a substitute against German giants Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup. The match ended 1–1, meaning that Norwich won the second round tie 3–2 on aggregate and went on to face Inter Milan, who eliminated them.

He was loaned to Hereford and Brighton & Hove Albion before completing a £250,000 move to Gillingham in 1997. He scored 29 goals in 67 league and cup games for the Gills and was quickly transferred to newly-promoted Division One side Bristol City for £1.2m.

Big money moves

The striker's stock continued to rise and after scoring 21 goals for Bristol City in the 1998-99 season, Wolverhampton Wanderers paid a club record £3.5million for him in September 1999 in an attempt to replace Robbie Keane. He played only one season at Molineux, finishing as the club's top goalscorer with 16 goals.

Ten months after arriving at Wolves, he departed to Premier League club Leicester City for £5.5 million, a decision he would come to regret. Brought in as a replacement for Emile Heskey (who left for Liverpool for £11 million), he failed to live up to expectations, scoring only 11 goals in 58 league appearances as Leicester were relegated in the 2001/02 season. One particularly poor performance against Liverpool led to The Sun newspaper headlining its sports section with a picture of him described as "The League's Worst Striker". Some Leicester fans called him 'Ade Akinbadbuyi'

His subsequent £2.2m transfer to Crystal Palace in February 2002 was met with incredulity and relief in Leicester, and shock in South London where it was seen as something of a panic buy. On arrival he took the surprisingly high number 55 shirt, adding a very small plus sign between the numbers to signify his preferred shirt number, 10, which was already taken.

Having scored just one goal in 14 league and cup appearances, he was loaned out to Stoke City in 2003. He scored twice – the second goal coming in the last game of the 2002-03 season, when The Potters beat Reading 1-0 to retain their second tier status. He later joined on a permanent basis, on a free transfer, and became an ironic 'cult hero' with the Stoke City crowd.

Burnley and the Blades

Akinbiyi completed a £600,000 move to Burnley in February 2005, but marked his debut by getting sent off within two minutes for head butting George McCartney of Sunderland. After netting 16 times for the Clarets, he moved to Sheffield United for a then club record £1.75 million in January 2006.

He scored on his debut for the Blades against Derby County, and endeared himself to fans by scoring in his first Steel City derby at Hillsborough.

After winning promotion, Akinbiyi made only five appearances for the Blades in the Premier League in 2006. It was also reported that he was involved in a training ground bust-up with team-mate Claude Davis in October 2006 following a 2–0 defeat against Everton in which Davis had been sent off.

Akinbiyi was soon resold to Burnley in January 2007 for a fee of £650,000 with a further £100,000 to be paid in the summer of 2007. His second debut for the Clarets was more successful, scoring a goal against top flight Reading in the FA Cup.

During the rest of the 2006-07 season, Akinbiyi was not as successful as during his first spell at Turf Moor, scoring just three goals. This was attributed by Steve Cotterill to Akinbiyi having spent too much time in the weights room at Sheffield United and as a result being too bulky. He was given the number nine shirt for the 2007-08 season but found himself behind Andy Gray and Robbie Blake as a first choice striker. Since coming back to Burnley Ade has lacked consistent form, finding goals hard to come by, and looking a shadow of the man who was once top scorer for the club. His hard work and endeavour has made him a firm fans favourite however, with ironic cheers of "Ade, Ade, Ade!" looking to spur him on.

External links

• Ade Akinbiyi at Soccerbase
• AdeAkinbiyi profile at burnleyfootballclub.com
• Career information at ex-canaries.co.uk
• If it's January, it must be time to send for Ade Akinbiyi