Former Ipswich Town player trying to fulfill his potential

The ball ricocheted out towards the edge of the area, fortunately landing in the path of Rekeem Harper, who was the quickest to respond.

With one devastating swipe of his left boot, his arrowed drive into the far corner condemned Rotherham United to relegation from the Championship while giving West Bromwich Albion a critical comeback victory to secure their place in the play-offs.

Lift off at the Hawthorns, not just for the club, but also for the players. Harper scored his first goal for his boyhood club on that day, and it was a watershed moment for the then-19-year-old, who had established himself in the Black Country’s first-team picture.

That was April 27, 2019, but think back even farther, to August 13, 2017, when this exceptional talent became only the second player born in the twenty-first century to play in the Premier League, following Angel Gomes for Manchester United on the final day of the 2016/17 season. Could Harper be the effervescent spark the Baggies required? Darren Moore surely believed so.

Harper was an unused substitute for much of West Brom’s first season back in the second division in 2018/19, but he had done enough to avoid being loaned out, and his opportunity came shortly. West Brom had recently suffered a 2-1 setback to Blackburn Rovers, Harper’s former loan club, and when Moore watched the game back in agony, he recognized his team’s problems.

James Morrison and Gareth Barry were experienced players who lacked legs. Rovers’ midfield overwhelmed the pair. Corry Evans, Harrison Reed, and Bradley Dack fizzed and perturbed around them, causing Moore to make a switch, bringing on another veteran, Chris Brunt, and Jake Livermore to restore some control in the middle of the park. 25 minutes later, Livermore was sent off, suspended for three games, and Moore needed a boost. He saw Harper and made a decision.

Baggies breakthrough

The 4-4-2 was out; the 4-3-3 was in. Harper was immediately moved into the starting lineup as one of the two eights in the new system, with Brunt, the captain, in front of Gareth Barry. He played the entire 90 minutes in the Baggies’ 1-1 draw with Norwich City, and he was kept in the starting lineup for the next two games, a 2-0 win over Bolton and a 3-2 loss to Middlesbrough, where he assisted Jay Rodriguez’s 42nd-minute equaliser.

Harper was dropped back to the bench for Livermore’s away game against Stoke, as Stefan Johansen returned to the side as a number 10 in a 4-2-3-1, but against Nottingham Forest, who had real energy in their midfield three with Jack Colback, Ben Watson, and Ryan Yates, Barry was dropped in favour of Harper.

He had become a fixture at the Hawthorns, where he was studying from some of the smartest minds in the second tier: Barry, Morrison, and Johansen in center field.

Despite Moore’s dismissal following a 1-1 draw with Ipswich, caretaker manager James Shan maintained Harper in the side until the end of the season. The midfielder was a project that the Baggies sought to polish, as Harper started six of the final 10 games of the season.

However, when Slaven Bilic took over in B71, Harper’s game time stagnated. He made only four starts and six substitute appearances as the Baggies gained promotion, but he needed more chances to advance.

In January of the next season, he bit the bullet and joined Birmingham City on loan, but he was pushed into an unreliable Blues side whose methods were constantly changing under Aitor Karanka. Harper played in a midfield three in a 4-1-4-1, a more defensive trio in a 3-5-2, and an even more exposed pair in a 4-4-2.

Ipswich incoming, and a Crewe car-crash

After a disappointing stint in which he did not contribute to a single goal, a decision had to be made about his future at Albion. They chose to cash in, receiving £500,000 from League One Ipswich, who were rebuilding under Paul Cook in an attempt to return to the second division after a disappointing relegation.

It appeared that Harper would be an ideal fit, especially with captain Lee Evans to lean on in tough situations, and that he would be given more opportunity to show what he could do on the ball, dominate games with his technical ability, and express himself in a more physical league. However, after starting all six of Ipswich’s games, none of which they won, Harper’s playing time was reduced once more, and he was loaned out to Crewe for the rest of the season.

There were several complications with Harper’s arrival at Gresty Road.

The Alex were in the bottom of the third tier, with low morale and a losing record every week. Harper had entered a midfield that was being sliced through like a hot knife through butter, and in the 18 games that the 22-year-old played in Cheshire, Crewe lost 15 of them, winning only two and drawing the other.

Down in Devon

The same can be said for his loan time with Exeter City the following season, as he joined a team plagued by inconsistency and mid-table mediocrity, despite the Grecians’ historic loan signing of Jay Stansfield from Fulham.

Harper was assigned to play in the deeper-lying midfield two in a 3-4-1-2 formation under Matt Taylor in Devon, wearing the number six jersey symbolically. He forged a promising early connection with Archie Collins, but any momentum was stifled by Taylor’s move to Rotherham, with his successor Gary Caldwell benching Harper until late January, when he returned for a 2-0 win over Milton Keynes before being replaced after 71 minutes due to injury.

With such long spells and managerial changes, any consistency Harper was able to create was quickly snatched away, as evidenced by his second yellow card dismissal at Port Vale in a 1-0 defeat as his season began to falter. He scored his only goal of the season away at Peterborough – a minute after coming on as a half-time substitute for Harry Kite – but a lack of tactical consistency, quality surroundings, and a loss of personal identity meant Harper left St James’ with yet another disappointing loan spell behind him.

Harper’s stats this season