Semenyo might have signed for a Championship club but, still only 18 years old, he was immediately sent out on loan to non-league side Bath City.<\/p>\n
Jerry Gill, their coach at the time, believes that step into men’s football helped Semenyo become the physical player he is today.<\/p>\n
“When he was playing with players of his own age he relied on the fact he would just be stronger than them – but when he came up against men he had to learn how to protect with his arm, shield the ball, spin and slide,” said Gill.<\/p>\n
Semenyo started as a striker but Gill moved him out wide and was impressed with his response to feedback.<\/p>\n
“He was a sponge,” said Gill. “He was accepted with the team – and that’s not easy for a young lad coming on loan. His attitude had to be right and it was. He had that big smile on his face that you still see now.”<\/p>\n
Next came a loan move to League Two Newport County, for whom he scored three goals in 21 games across the first half of the 2018-19 season.<\/p>\n
A couple of impressive FA Cup performances saw him heavily linked to Premier League side Chelsea – and prompted Bristol City to recall him.<\/p>\n
Would this be Semenyo’s moment to shine at a higher level? Not quite.<\/p>\n
He was handed his first start by the play-off chasing Robins in March 2019 but was hooked before the hour mark with his team 1-0 down at home to Leeds.<\/p>\n
A month later, with City trailing top-six rivals Derby, he was thrown on as a 33rd-minute substitute in search of an equaliser. They lost 2-0 – and Semenyo was sent off.<\/p>\n
The false starts would continue – a relatively disappointing loan spell in League One with Sunderland the following season, managers coming and going at Ashton Gate and Semenyo failing to establish himself in the team.<\/p>\n
It was the arrival of Nigel Pearson that seemed to change things.<\/p>\n
Partly through choice and partly through necessity, with a wage bill badly in need of trimming, Pearson turned to youth. Semenyo, along with now Bournemouth midfielder Alex Scott, was front and central.<\/p>\n
As one of the few experienced pros remaining at the club, ex-Bradford City Nahki Wells would become a mentor to Semenyo during that time and recalls “a young player who was raw but full of talent”.<\/p>\n
“I remember being that guy he came and had chats with. I was almost like a big brother,” Wells told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“There’s nothing he didn’t have. He had the pace, the ability and a skill level that was underappreciated at the time.<\/p>\n
“It was very hard to stop that. It was like a puzzle and he was just putting his pieces together to become this article that he is today.”<\/p>\n
Something had clicked. In 2021-22 – eight goals and 12 assists. In 2022-23 – eight goals and two assists.<\/p>\n
Premier League clubs came sniffing, with Southampton and Crystal Palace – the club that had rejected him six years prior – among those interested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Semenyo might have signed for a Championship club but, still only 18 years old, he was immediately sent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-756056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}