Notts Joe: Stanley Aborah departure comes as no surprise

I wouldn’t really say that I was surprised to learn about the departure of Stanley Aborah.

That said, I did value what he offered and although some believe that he was difficult to manage, I’m not quite sure I would agree. Who knows for sure?

However, from his opening debut after trialling with Notts, Aborah shown that he had some spark about him.

In games where the Magpies desperately lacked that certain quality, Aborah was there to provide it and until Jamie Fullarton came around, it was really hard to see our midfield without his presence.

There’s no doubt that a player of his quality would be asking for game time, yet it did come as a shock when we all learned why he wasn’t playing.

Whilst the local media speculated it was due to his poor defensive attributes, something else I would largely debate wasn’t fair (who exactly did defend well?) as the entire team was largely poor and for this reason I always felt he stood out unfairly because he tried.

Yet it emerged back at the start of March 2016, that the then 28-year-old Belgian midfielder had ‘asked to leave Notts because he felt he wouldn’t play’, this was after being frozen out of the squad.

The Belgian said: “To me it's not a difficult situation. He came in. I was dropped. Therefore I asked him if he wanted me to leave. I said I don't have to leave but if I could find a club it's fine by him.”

He also accused the then manager Jamie Fullarton of lying about his reasons not to include him in the starting 11.

“The question gets asked to him after a game he doesn’t say this. First he said he makes informed decisions or something like that. Then he said I’m not available. That wasn’t true. He said I was ill, for the York game.”

I genuinely believe that the majority of Notts fans assumed this would be the end his time at the club, yet he would still go on to feature for the Magpies.

This time around he hasn’t featured in the squad as a starter since the FA Cup clash against Boreham Wood, which we won 2-0, but  he did come on in the 2-0 away defeat against Grimsby Town in the 83rd minute.

I hadn’t realised this, so it does make sense that we would allow him to depart – it also eases the disappointment because it’s hard to say he would feature under Kevin Nolan.

It’s debatable if things may have been different if we had included Aborah, I guess it's beside the point now but watching him play was generally exciting.

His departure makes me curious as to why other players haven’t been released? Yet that might be explained by if he had requested to be released.

Will Genaro Snijders be next? Can anyone actually say when it was he last appeared in the squad? This is something else I don’t actually recall.

Perhaps he will get his chance finally under Nolan unlike Aborah? Notts do require pace on the wing and he does offer that.

If we can inject forward movement into the squad, perhaps the wing would see more time to pinpoint the perfect pass? As it would seem the recent arrivals offer the lack of pace the squad has been missing.

The departure of Aborah may not be best news for some fans, considering the restraints of the fair play rules – I would imagine the decision on who to allow him to leave would be difficult.

I, and all of us at PON, want to wish him all the best with his career.

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