READING FC manager Ruben Selles has claimed that he has not seen enough ‘commitment’ from Ovie Ejaria to make his return to the first-team.
The mercurial midfielder has been out on the sidelines for an extended period and played his last game for the club more than a year ago.
Ejaria was injured when Ruben Selles arrived at the club, but has since been omitted from the first-team set-up for an array of different reasons which was detailed by the manager.
“Right now with Ovie is a personal circumstance for him so he’s having some time out,” said Selles.
“He’s been taking some personal days. He has individual situation so has had some freedom so has not been training fully with us. He won’t be ready for a couple of weeks at least.”
Despite his situation that has kept him away from training, Selles also admitted that he needs to see more commitment from the former Liverpool man when he returns.
He continued: “I’ve not seen a lot from him. I’ve seen the videos so I;m waiting and expecting to see that player to be capable with full focus.
“We need to respect each other. If someone hasn’t been inside the circle and respecting their team mates and what we understand about respect, I think we are making heroes of people that haven;t been able to play for us.
“I will not make a hero of anybody that does not have the correct attitude or stays with the standards of the club.
“The situation with him was complicated before I arrived. We had a player that first of all was injured then didn’t show any commitment for the club.
“I have different personalities in the staff and the players. The problem isn’t about managing one character, the problem is when you need people to show something and in his case he still needs to show commitment.
“I can’t do it from scratch, I can’t do it from nothing. Nothing indicates to me that he can do that (make the difference) right now. His moments for this club were a long time ago.
“We can make speculation about a lot of things but he has not shown anything that he can play and compete for us.
“In the world of football there are players from two years ago that were amazing and now they are not playing football anymore. In two years a lot of things can happen. We can have examples from other players.
“We’re talking about the here and the now and the circumstances that are around us. What we are not going to do is prioritise players that didn’t show any commitment.
“It’s a combination of things. Small things like being late for some of training or delaying his comeback when we’ve given him time to reset himself.
“Or he didn’t commit in terms of the thing we do with participating in the dressing room. All of those things, it’s not only one thing. If I say lack of commitment, it’s because there has been a lack of commitment.
Selles also confirmed that he has no knowledge of a clause in Ejaria’s current contract that would require Reading to pay Liverpool money if he is to make another first-team appearance.
He continued: “I haven’t had any instruction to not play him because of the contract situation, there has been no conversation about that.
“As much as I’m aware, there’s nothing in the contract that indicates that.
“Not him or any other player I have been told not to play him or play him.”
