Hull City didn't strike gold with £3m Stoke City deal - Cardiff City were big winners of his Tigers stint | OneFootball

Seyi Olofinjana's time in East Yorkshire didn't go according to script

In the summer of 2009, Hull City looked to undergo a recruitment drive that would see the club build on a mixed first-ever season of top-flight football.

The Tigers gained plenty of early admirers after sitting within the top-six in the Autumn to Christmas period, but a run of one Premier League win following the turn of the year saw Phil Brown's side escape an immediate relegation back to the Championship by a solitary point ahead of Newcastle United.

Unaware of the financial instability that was soon to follow, City went on to acquire the likes of Kamil Zayatte, Kamil Ghilas, Stephen Hunt, Steven Mouyokolo and Paul McShane, whilst Jan Venegoor of Hesselink, Jozy Altidore and Ibrahima Sonko also arrived on free transfers and loan deals respectively.

Another arrival who set the club back a fair amount came in the form of Nigerian midfielder, Seyi Olofinjana, who moved from Stoke City for £3m, after the Potters also maintained their position in the Premier League following automatic promotion in 2007/08.

However, it would be fair to say that the Staffordshire outfit would prove the real winners of this particular transfer, as well as Cardiff City later down the line, with the East Yorkshire club left to feel a major sense of transfer regret.

Seyi Olofinjana's first season at Hull City ended in relegation

Olofijana made his debut in Black and Amber on the opening day of the 2009/10 season - a 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge - immediately becoming a regular in Brown's starting XI for 10 of the following 12 games, in which Hull accumulated just 11 points.

However, the last of those games was a 2-1 success against his former employers, and the game in which the 56-time international netted his solitary goal for the club with a sublime second-half equaliser before Venegoor of Hesselink gave Hull a vital three points in the dying embers.

As City's form remained inconsistent amid a backdrop of financial turmoil, Olofinjana found himself in and out of the side, particularly in the final weeks of the season as Brown was placed on gardening leave and replaced by Iain Dowie, with the club officially relegated after a 1-0 defeat to Sunderland with two games remaining

Cardiff City benefitted from Seyi Olofinjana loan - Hull City never saw the same player

As Hull's financial difficulties worsened, plenty of long-serving and high-earning players such as Geovanni, George Boateng and Boaz Myhill departed, with Nigel Pearson named as the club's manager ahead of the 2010/11 campaign.

Olofinjana was an unused substitute in the 2-0 opening day victory over play-off winners Swansea City in HU3, but would join their South Wales rivals, Cardiff City, just three days later, making his debut for the Bluebirds in a 2-1 away win at Derby County.

Hull would see Anthony Gerrard move the other way on loan as the transfer window came to an end, and both players were bizarrely permitted to play against their parent clubs. This, however, only worked in Cardiff's favour in the early-season match-up between the two clubs as the Nigerian shrugged off a helpless Gerrard, who went on to be named Hull's Player of the Year, for the opening goal in a 2-0 victory at the Cardiff City Stadium.

The midfielder's productivity was much improved under Dave Jones, registering a total of six goals and two assists alongside the likes EFL and Bluebirds great, Peter Whittingham, albeit his final outings for the club would see Cardiff fall short in the play-offs once more, losing 3-0 to Reading over two legs.

Olofinjana was reportedly Hull's highest earner, taking home a £28,000 per-week sum, but never hit the same heights upon his return to East Yorkshire, making just five appearances in the 2011/12 campaign after a lengthy injury.

The final 12 of his 40 appearances in total for Hull came in the promotion-winning season of 2012/13, although he would be loaned out to Sheffield Wednesday in the season's final weeks, reuniting with Jones on a temporary and then permanent basis after his release from the Tigers at the end of the season, with his time at the MKM Stadium almost forgotten many years later.