{"id":202723,"date":"2025-09-05T16:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T16:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/202723\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T16:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T16:12:12","slug":"deji-sotona-reveals-why-he-really-rejected-man-utd-professional-contract-he-got-a-call-from-a-former-pl-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/202723\/","title":{"rendered":"Deji Sotona reveals why he really rejected Man\u00a0Utd professional contract, he got a call from a former PL legend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Manchester United academy talent Deji Sotona has revealed the reason he walked away from the club.<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the 2019\/20 season, Deji Sotona was forging a reputation for himself as one of Manchester United\u2019s brightest talents.<\/p>\n

Sotona hit headlines for setting internal speed records at Carrington<\/a>, when The Mail<\/a> reported that he clocked a faster sprint speed than Marcus Rashford and Dan James.<\/p>\n

He scored goals<\/a> in the club\u2019s FA Youth Cup<\/a> run in 2020 \u2013 but by time the semi-finals were played<\/a> in October amid a Covid delay, Sotona had already left the club.<\/p>\n

Sotona turned down a three-year contract offer<\/a> at Manchester United, electing to sign with French side Nice.<\/p>\n

\"DejiPhoto by Ash Donelon\/Manchester United via Getty ImagesPatrick Vieira convinced Deji Sotona to leave Manchester United<\/p>\n

Deji Sotona explains that he was convinced to leave Manchester United by former Arsenal rival Patrick Vieira<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vieira was manager of Nice at the time, and he personally recruited Sotona via a series of phone calls, and promised him first team football.<\/p>\n

Speaking to More Than A Match, Sotona explained: \u201cI was 17 almost 18. Patrick Vieira called me and told me I\u2019m going to play first team football and he\u2019s got plans for me at the club and stuff. He\u2019s going to develop me into a different kind of player.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe called me a few times, not only once, had a few conversations. He\u2019s a legend. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said \u2018I\u2019ve got to make a decision here\u2019, I loved my time at United, rejecting that pro [contract] was not easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHim saying I\u2019m going to play first team football at 17, it\u2019s a dream, I feel like many people would take that.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnited were saying I\u2019m going to train first team, Nice were saying every single day first team guaranteed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sotona made the call to take on the challenge in France, but it did not work out as planned, with Patrick Vieira losing his job within months.<\/p>\n

He admitted that training in a first team environment was tough: \u201cAs I get there, first day, my first touch of the ball someones clamped me. It was tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNice were struggling, losing a lot of games, you know what the fans are like there, one home game they attacked the team bus.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext morning Patrick Vieira was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vieira was replaced by Adrien Ursea, and Sotona said he was quickly frozen out of the club\u2019s first team plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext manager come in, he\u2019s not having me. He don\u2019t even put me on the bench.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where Deji Sotona is now<\/p>\n

Deji Sotona had a subsequent trial at Chelsea and spent six months with Brentford\u2019s B team on a loan deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He has had brief stints at Kilmarnock, Burnley, Boston United and Doncaster Rovers, before resetting at National League side Eastleigh in 2024.<\/p>\n

But in his first game of the season, Sotona suffered an ACL injury, and has been out of action ever since.<\/p>\n

He is currently in the final stages of his rehab and is a free agent looking to relaunch his career once more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Manchester United academy talent Deji Sotona has revealed the reason he walked away from the club. During…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":202724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,104221,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-202723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-under-18s","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115152574631473982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}