₦airaland Forum

Players need to understand that the era of throwing €70M+ on a player is coming to an end. Clubs finances are tight, even in the Prem. We’ve seen spending this summer come down. Players are now looking to run down their contracts and leave on a free as they can get better wages as a result eg Rudiger, Mbappe, TAA (possibly to Madrid next summer). Leny Yoro would have done the same next year if United didn’t come in with a large bif.

Osimhen agreeing for a contract extension with that massive release clause a no-no.

His stock was the highest right after Napoli won the league. That was the time to move.

The fights between him and the club, the injuries and Napoli’s poor form last season definitely put some clubs off him this summer.

Toylove:
As reported:
🔹€620k a week
🔹€30m a year
🔹€120m in 4 years

...all guaranteed.

This thing no easy oo
How many of us will reject this kain offer😂😂😂
Make nobody blame osimhen if e finally chooses saudi.
My brother, that can move mountain. No cap. That's a lot of money. 😂

He would never see that type of money at Chelsea

Bannedlargejr:
If he goes to Chelsea, he has another chances to increasing his legacy footballing wise and be remembered in the form of a drogba. If he goes to saudi, he will become RICH but posterity and non-Nigerian fans will remember him as a one season wonder. Saudi moves are signing that one should do in their late 30’s not in their prime

Nna, I used to think this way until I realized no footballing career is promised. You can collect a career ending injury on your first day at a new club and that is that. Once your contract is up, you’re done.

Osimhen, in winning the Italian golden boot and Scudetto has done something most professional footballers have never done.

Playing time and funds may be promised when you sign your contract, but winning trophies isn’t.

To me, for Saudi to even come for you is still a sign of success if you think about it. There are thousands of players across Europe but only a handful are getting these bumper contracts.

Assuming the reports are to be believed about the €740K per week figure, it’s hard to tell someone to turn down that money. €130K a week is a lot but it’s almost 6x less than the Saudi offer.

Footballing legacy is a term people dangle to cover up what football has been about for the past 20-30 years; money. Football at the end of the day is a job first and foremost.

A lot of these pundits that talk about footballing legacy never had the chance to get this massive contracts from Saudi.

Footballers have a life after football. Some want to invest, build schools, start businesses etc. You need deep capital for that.

VO should sack his agent. All this talk of Saudi is ridiculous at this stage in his career.

VO needs to make a decision:

A) Does he want to take the money from Saudi now, knowing it may stunt his footballing development and could possibly affect his NT standing.

B) Does he want to keep playing and challenging at the highest level in Europe.

If B, he needs to lower his wage demands to be more in line with what he can get as a top earner for a Big 6 Prem club.

I still maintain he had no business signing a new contract with Napoli. If he didn’t he’d be on less than one year on his contract and ADL would be desperate to sell.

VO is a top striker, yes, but €100M+ was far too much for him. His numbers are very good for Napoli but he’s really only had one elite season. The others have been good but riddled with injuries that have kept him off the pitch.

Part of being world class is being available for selection.

Napoleon55:
For me,apart from Arsenal,he should stay in Italy instead of all these rush rush deals,a better offer may come next transfer.

100% agree. I think ADL will let him go for €65M, which is about £55M. At that price, I think Arsenal would pull the trigger assuming VO’s wage demands aren’t too crazy.

ChrisKels:
Dele Bashiru is good.

Lazio is an excellent move for him. I’ll be following them intently this season.

We really need a creative midfielder and Bashiru could be the answer.

Danielnino00:
No serious team will build its attack around Lukaku bro.. at least not this present Lukaku...
Napoli downfall started when that greedy ADL refused to beef up the squad after selling Kim Min Jae and letting Spaletti leave..

Gbam!! You get am bro.

There’s a saying in football that the best time to strengthen your squad is after winning.

Inter won Serie A, added Zielinski and Taremi
Real Madrid won La Liga + UCL, added Mbappe

ADL has a small club mentality.

charlesemeka85:
u been they expect them to win Japan?

From the day the they were placed with Brazil,Japan and Spain I knew they hv no chance

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I’m not talking about the womens team but the mens.

2008 we were getting Silver but now we don’t even qualify..

Naija has fallen badly. It’s even evident in our football. Olympics is not the WC but it’s still a competition to showcase the depth of your nation’s footballing talent.

We’ve gone from medaling in that tournament yo not even qualifying.

Everything don scatter man.

Marjoribanks:
Ori e gbale! You are the one ranting all over this space, mumu!

If the Europeans 5k has the same value as Mbappe, Lamal, Saka, Williams parents' country of birth 5k, do you think they would be playing Euros not AFCON? Do you even think there parents will migrate initially.
My context is easy to understand for a brilliant mind. I don't have time for boring argument.

There is more to it than just money. The US is wealthier than most Euro nations but won’t come close to them in football.

The system set in place by the FA also means something.

If you look at this Spanish side, many of them played and won the Euros at the U-19 and U-21 levels and many of them played alongside de la Fuente, the current manager.

Moreover, Spain has a philosophy in how they groom their footballers, regardless of club. There is emphasis on being technically sound with the ball and being able to play the ball.

The groundwork was laid at an early age.

Look at Egypt and SA. Wealthy nations compared to the rest of Africa but they haven’t done much at the world stage.

Money is part of it but not the end be all.

BannedLarge:
GTFOH it’s 100% on his behavior. A Chelsea team that can splash 100 mil on the likes of fernandez, mudrek, caicedo draws the line on osimehn + lukaku down payment. Anyway, if all you yes man like, continue encouraging bad behavior and setting your players. The next person that I have warned about his jovial attitude is boniface. A word is enough for the wise

It’s not just his bad behavior my goodness. I already told you multiple clubs were in for him but that injury record gives reason for pause.

You mention Caicedo, Enzo and Mudryk. Question: are any of them as injury prone as Osimhen?

Teams tolerate divas and bad behavior all the time as long as there’s performance on the pitch.

Mark Ogden (British reporter that covers United) was the one who broke the story about why some clubs were hesitant on Osimhen. They wanted to see him keep up his level of performance over another season.

But it’s a free world, you’re allowed to believe what you want

BannedLarge:
Going back to farmers league when you could had behaved well and signed for an English team is just diabolical.

I think it’s less his behavior and more his injury record. At the end of Napoli’s Scudetto winning season, outside of cost, the two things that kept some bigger named clubs hesitant on Osimhen was his injury record and ability to replicate his prior season’s form.

This past season was another injury hit one so it was always difficult for him to reproduce prior form.

If a club is going to shell out close to €100M then they expect you to start and play most games. Elite clubs are playing 45-50 games a season. Osimhen has never played up to 40+ games in all comps in a single season in the 4 years he’s been at Napoli. Kvra as played 42+ games per season he’s been at Napoli.

Part of being an elite player is being available for selection. Longevity and sturdiness. I’m hoping Osimhen can maintain fitness at his next club. He needs the game time to shine.

daveP:
Is it not time to stop calling it AFCON? Cos that's tautology

We don't hear copa America du nationale.
African Cup is quite okay or rename to a retouch of "Africa" like the Euros. What do you think?

Brotherly, whether you wan call am “Africa Cup” or “Africas” AFCON is still valid. That is how we want to understand / name our own competition.

typicalgamer:
Our swimming pool of players

Folks here seem to make it sound like we’re the France 🇫🇷 of Africa

We’re not o

We have 1 world class player

Then everyone else is journey men

The sooner we see that the sooner we stop unrealistic expectations

If our players are mainly journey men then what will you say of other African nation’s teams. Is it Mali, Senegal or Egypt that is loaded with world class players?

Relative to other African nations, we have, on paper, one of the deeper talent pools of players to call on.

Ppogbae:
Exactly. Apologies for the pessimism, hopefully we can AT LEAST get a playoff berth. But I'm hoping that Zim or Lesotho spoils SA's party.

We should forget about that playoff, na long thing. We need to win our next four matches at minimum. SA will still drop points that one I’m sure of.

Ppogbae:
It is out of our hands because winning the rest our matches does not guarantee us 1st place. We need Benin and SA to lose (or maybe draw) the rest of their matches in order for us finish with higher points. Those possibilities aren't certain.

You’re correct, even if we win out, SA will still need to draw or lose one.

Ppogbae:
Clinching automatic berth is completely out of our hands. But, we have a good chance to qualify via playoffs if we win the next round of games.

What do you mean an automatic berth is out of our hands? If we win our remaining 6 games there’s a chance to top the group.

We should focus on that alone. Playoffs is a long thing. First you have to win two legs to be the CAF representative. Then you have an inter confederation playoff as well before qualifying for the WC.

Let’s focus on what we have infront of us.

Goke7:
When the SA coach said the draw they had in Nigeria was good for them, the man knows what he was talking about.

Definitely a good result for them. On paper, Nigeria away was their toughest match and they got a point out of it. We need three points when we meet them in Jozi.

Goke7:
I agree with you totally 💯 NFF refused to build on all the successes of yesteryears and we are paying dearly for it now

Nigeria as a whole doesn’t know how to manage and maintain success. That’s why we constantly have to rebuild from scratch. We fail to manage and maintain.

Won the AFCON in 2013 then failed to qualify for the 2015 and 2017 editions.

Similarly, went to the 2023 AFCON final but are stuttering in our WCQ

minfelix:
This our group is just a mumu group, see as Lesotho is struggling against Rwanda, trailing 0-1🤦🏼…see SA and Zim playing 1-1…
I pray lesotho equalize and Zimbabwe wins😜🤪
Kai imagine 9ja was winning all games
By now we for don qualify with 6games to spare with all this mumu result im seeing

Bro that is what I’m saying. There is no reason we should not be at minimum 10 pts. This is a group that we should have wrapped up by the 7th match day so we can now start experimenting with different line-ups and formations.

The one saving grace is that our group has no clear strong team. If results hold, we’ll be 4pts off the top. Far far from ideal but we win the next 3 matches and we’ll be right at the top/near the top.

We have the players, but they have to play like a team.

If you want to sack Finidi, sack him now. We have a full round of AFCONQ for the rest of 2024 so if you want a new coach, get one now before AFCONQ start in September. Next round of CAF WCQ will be in March 2025. That should be at least 6-8 games the new coach would have with the team before next round of WCQ.

Right now we should just hope all our opponent matches end in draws. It will leave us 4pts off the top. In a bad situation but by no means is it finished

BascoVanVeli:
Finidi's only mistake was listening to the hype and dropping Onuachu

Onuachu did nothing in the match against SA

ChrisKels:
Lookman is gonna regret not waiting for England.

England was never coming

Need more urgency in our play

Some of us no sabi talk better analysis.

Bench Moffi and Chuks for who? The same Paul and KC we were complaining about before?

The team is playing better than yesterday but two defensive goofs and we are down. It’s not like Benin has been creating chance after chance. We just defended badly in two instances and got punished for it.

Still enough time to get 2 goals and all three points but we will need to score our 2nd within 5-10 mins of the restart.

CornOak:
Looks like we're gonna concede another goal soon, our defense have been exposed.

You’re correct. We needed to just see the match through to the half.

9JAMac10:
If Nigeria doesn’t win this game. Sack finidi first thing tomorrow morning

On what grounds? The team has played much better than in previous years under Rohr and JP.

Will Finidi enter field and stop Bassey from making that poor clearance.

seborrhic:
Hearing on live radio,it's now 1:1 and that Bassey was at fault

Yea, he didn’t clear the ball well

This is what happens when you play players in their correct positions. We need a 2nd and 3rd goal. Goal differential will be key for this group. Let’s run up the numbers.

Leaving this matchday at 6pts will be good. At worst, we’ll be 2 behind Lesotho if they win tomorrow

Great goal from Onyedika. We’ve been shouting for his inclusion for a reason

Iwobi is much better now that he has two solid midfielders behind him.

Kennedyiheme02:
where you dey watch am

All CAF WCQ are free on Fifa Plus.

Use VPN watch am

https://www.plus.fifa.com/en/?gl=us