Nottingham Forest’s Ola Aina: ‘Kyle Walker said I was pretty quick but he was chilled about it’
The defender on being the fastest player in Serie A, happy times at Chelsea’s academy and why he loves the City Ground
‘Even though that clip shows I got past him, it wasn’t as easy as it may have looked,” says Ola Aina. The Nottingham Forest defender is recalling the moment during a defeat against Manchester City a fortnight ago when he took on and beat Kyle Walker in a foot race. It’s a feat not many players, including Kylian Mbappé, can claim to have matched in recent times and Aina says his phone has been “frantic” since a tweet from the Premier League that has amassed 22,000 likes went viral.
“I remember when it happened I saw him and thought: ‘I might as well just try it’ – and I put everything into it,” says the 27-year-old Nigeria defender, who has made 19 starts for Forest after joining on a one-year deal from Torino last summer. “Afterwards he said something like: ‘You’re pretty quick’ and ‘You caught me flat-footed.’ But he was very chilled about it. He’s done the same thing to other players so many times.”
