₦airaland Forum

Ighalo scored his 20th of the season yesterday in watford's 3-1 win away at forest. Now 2nd top scorer in the championship. Averages a goal in every 92 minutes.

Would be updating weekly..........
NB :- Some players with same no. Of goals as others are higher on d chart due to the fact that they've played lesser minutes.

In what has been a relatively barren season for african players in europe. The following are africa's top scorers so far this season accross europe's top 5 leagues :-

1. PIERRE EMERICK AUBAMEYANG - GABON - BORUSSIA DORTMUND - 13 goals

2. DEMBA PAPISS CISSE - SENEGAL - NEWCASTLE UTD - 11 goals

3. MAX-ALAIN GRADEL - IVORY COAST - SAINT ETIENNE - 11 goals

4. WILFRED BONY - IVORY COAST - MANCHESTER CITY - 10 goals

5. DIAFRA SAKHO - SENEGAL - WESTHAM - 10 goals

6. ANTHONY UJAH - NIGERIA - FC COLOGNE - 10 goals

7.MAME BIRAM DIOUF - SENEGAL - STOKE CITY - 9 goals

8. JORDAN AYEW - GHANA - LORIENT - 9 goals

9. MAXIM CHOUPO-MOTING - CAMEROON - SCHALKE 04 - 9 goals

10. CHEIKH DIABATE - MALI - BOURDEUX - 8 goals

19 goals in 20 league starts is no doubt a great stat for any striker.
Thats the story of nigerian striker Odion Ighalo for watford in The English championship this season, Presntly the 3rd highest scorer.
Odion ighalo has been arguably the most dangerous striker in english football in the year 2015.
No striker has scored as much goals as ighalo this year in all of england's top 4 divisions.
Scoring 15 goals in 13 league appearances(11 Starts).
In what has been the toughest season in the history of the championship, watford currently sit in 3rd position.Same point as 2nd place Norwich and 1 point behind leaders AFC Bournemouth.
Going by their form watford look primed for automatic promotion to the epl with 5 games left.
Also a bunch of epl clubs are reportedly chasing the 25yr old.
Hull city and west brom were heavily linked with him in january.
So promotion for watford or not, its 90 percent certain that ighalo would play in the EPL next season. So the big question is can ighalo take this same form to d PL ?
Some might argue that ighalo is doing this well because the championship isn't so competitive.

But if the likes of charlie Austin, Glenn murray, Danny Ings can do it, why can't ighalo ?
Charlie austin is currently the 3rd highest scorer in the EPL with 17 goals in 27 matches.
Last season in the championship,he wasnt even among the top 4 scorers.
Statistics show that Charlie austin has even performed far more in the EPL this season than he did in the championship last season.
Austin scored 19 in 36 appearances for qpr in the championship last season.This season so far, he has scored 17 in 26. A far much better ratio.
Also Glenn murray scored 8 goals in 18 appearances in the championship for reading in the 1st half of the season. But since moving to Crystal palace in january, he has scored 6 goals in 7 starts. A far much better ratio.
Ighalo has done far better in the championship so far this season than Charlie Austin did last season.
He has all the attributes to be a top EPL striker.
6ft 3 tall, physically strong,has decent pace and can use both feet very well.
Nigeria for the last 3 years haven't had a prolific striker in the EPL.
The last nigerian strikers to score goals in double digits in an EPL season were Yakubu(14 goals) and Odemwingie (15 goals) in the 2011/2012 season.
Can ighalo be the next ?.
We can only hope.

Nigerian prospect Sammy Ameobi made the who scored EPL young team of the season so far.
The 22yr old winger has been a key man in newcastle 's first xi this season.

OK......... so LewisO =Brimmie

Watford striker Odion Ighalo is the hottest property in English football since the turn of the year and is driving the his side towards the Premier League.
The striker has scored 13 goals in nine games in 2015 as Slavisa Jokanovic’s men remain in the top six and in the hunt for a return to the Premier League.
He has scored more goals this year than both Harry Kane and Danny Ings and is the top scorer in all four professional divisions in England in 2015.

Ighalo netted just four goals up until December 28 but has really found a rich vein of form since then.
The 25-year-old was born in Lagos and began his career in Nigeria before moving to Watford’s partner club Udinese in 2008. His first real break came when he moved to Spain with Granada – who also have links with Watford – and he scored 35 goals over two loan spells.
Ighalo joined Watford initially on loan at the beginning of the season before making the deal permanent in October.
Read more :-http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2968564/Odion-Ighalo-scored-goals-2015-Harry-Kane-Danny-Ings-striker-trying-fire-Watford-Premier-League.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

West Brom's Record signing Brown ideye made the whoscored EPL team of the week 25.Ideye scored the 1st and assisted d 2nd goal in west brom's 2-0 win against swansea on wednesday night.
With 2 goals and 1 assist in his last 2 matches the nigerian forward seems unstoppable atm.
Ideye is the 2nd nigerian to make the EPL team of the week this season after victor moses(twice)

Used to joke about the ghanaian national team being under a trophyless curse,but now its no longer a joking matter.
They had their golden opportunity to win the afcon today after 34 years of waiting,but the curse on them just can't be broken.
The person who cursed ghana is very heartless.
I sympathize with my ghenaian bredas.
I feel very sorry for you guys.
I really hope the curse on your national team could be broken as soon as possible.

Nigeria international defender Azubuike Egwuekwe might be close to sealing a move to EPl side Westham united from Warri wolves.Egwuekwe is currently in london negotiating terms with Westham.
Watford and Hopoel tel aviv are also reportedly interested in the services of the 25yr old.

Nihilist:
Why so angry?

I promise you will feel a lot better once you've cleaned up your chamber of secrets.

Vickyyb fear God and wash your vagina.

God bless you.

lmfao guy u wicked oh.

duduhemit36:
olodo

Efiko

danielmichael:
What is period

1/f=2t

Theben:
I'm supporting any team that can beat Ghana and South Africa

lolz.long time bro.hw u doing ?.
I see the naija vs ghana e-fights are still very much on.Is jiggaman still alive ?.I've missed d e-fights

With nigeria absent at the on-going afcon and 5 games played so far,which team(s) are you supporting ?.
Surprisingly I'm supporting south-africa .
Was impressed with the way they played during the qualifiers.Would love to see them reach at least the semis.
What about you ?

Arsenate:
dumb Chelsea glory hunter
Even last season when Arsenal was bad against the top teams, Chelsea still couldn't pick all 3points at the Emirates. What makes u think u will pick all the points this season

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPS3DDOWcgg&itct=CDsQpDAYACITCP659NX9n8MCFQ2vHAodWzwAJlIaT2xhbWlkZSBzdG9yeSBmb3IgdGhlIEdvZHM%3D&hl=en&client=mv-google&gl=US

LORETA:
hello MZdamola,i looked at your pics ...you are flawlessly preety..is that your young sister behind you?she look so much like you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPS3DDOWcgg&itct=CDsQpDAYACITCJ6f7_6xn8MCFcKqHAod6jYAcFISU3RvcnkgZm9yIHRoZSBHb2Rz&hl=en&gl=US&client=mv-google

maryam6:
yea, u r right dat's one of d reasons y i married my hubby.

Is that your baby's picture on ur profile ?.She too is locopriously beautiful.

babyboy3:
He played because Matic was suspended and they still lost. and what is his favoured position you were refering to?

Eerm.........but he has started the last 3 games with every midfielder including matic available.

jnrbayano:
Let's discuss, shall we?

What makes a football competition hard?

Cc. Richard6

europa league is too long,especially for the teams that start from the group-stage.

Get ur facts right.
He's 18 yrs and 11 months.
Not 19yrs !.
Born on Jan. 1996.

thegoodjoehunt3:
The reason why many of you call coach Keshi tactically inept and not good enough is because you have failed to pick up on the smart choices he makes.

Azeez. Brilliant and intelligent player. However, he is too light weight to play in an African defensive midfield. How many African sides play a light weight midfielder in a defensive midfield? If you remember, let me know. Look at the EPL. Most of the defensive midfielders are physically strong. Coach Arsene Wenger recently pointed out that he needs a physical presence in his midfield. Arteta and Flamini are too light weight.

If azeez is too light-weight,then its better not to play him at all,than to continously play him in a position that he isn't comfortable with obviously.
He had Sone aluko a good natural CAM,yet he benched him and prefered to use azeez a DM in that position.
Another qualms i have with keshi is,inviting exactly the same set of defenders,even when it was very obvious that most of them were out-of-form,even fielding an injured omeruo.
Most of our defenders got too comfortable becos they really had no one challenging them for their position.
Our defence was one of the main reason we failed to qualify.

Goke7:
you guys have come again calling all sort of names of players that are below average, that is how u guys advocated for uche until he came eventually and played poo for us against south africa, I thought players like azeez and moses played in the world cup where they made mockery of the game, balogun played in a friendly and just a push almost made the guy a cripple, you think leon balogun would have survived congo and sudan without breaking his leg again, Joel obi and obasi are too injury prone to play for the eagles and keshi has explained this so many times despite his admiration for the players, he said same thing for moses and he has been justified with moses being ruled out till next year, has sammy ameobi switched his allegiance to Nigeria formally? and who is responsible for that? is it the coach?

Please if you are being misinformed by sports journalists, please don't come here to misinform others, even if all these players were available, they are not as excellent as we think and not better than the players that failed to qualify for afcon.

I continue to reiterate my position that this generation of Nigerian players are the least talented we've ever had, anybody thinking we have players out there is either not sincere or ignorant and is misinforming Nigerians

Yes azeez played shit at d worldcup,but because he was used in a very wrong position by the tactically inept keshi.Playing
Azeez a natural defensive midfielder who had never played in an attacking role as the creative midfielder just behind emenike ?
BOUND TO FAIL !.
Go watch azeez in d la liga and see how well he plays,because he is been utilized in d right role.
And do u know d worst thing ?.That experiment failed woefully in azeez's 1st 2 matches(friendlies) in d SE.
But clueless keshi blindly continued to use him in that same wrong role(at d world cup against iran,and even in our 1st afcon qualifiers match against congo).
Sometimes i wonder if keshi doesn't see all these failures.

On moses,he warmed the bench throughout last season and was obviously out-of-form and match-rusty at d world cup.
Everyone knows what an in-form and sharp moses brings to d team.
All top class coaches invite players mostly based on current form.
Moses this season was in top form and lightening up d epl every week before his injury(5th best player in d epl according 2 whoscored.com),yet keshi ignored him.On obasi,balogun and joel obi,
Which coach in d world ignores a currently Fully fit in-form player becos of his past injuries or becos he is injury-prone ?.
What matters is a players current level of fitness.
And Joel obi,Balogun,obasi, had all been fully fit for over 6 months.
So thats an invalid excuse.

Sammy ameobi switched his allegiance to nigerian immediately after d world cup.
He could do anything for a nigerian shirt.He said he was working harder to impress at newcastle,so as to gain a nigerian call-up.
All that was needed was keshi to show interest,then d nff would do the rest.
Sammy has been in top form dis season. And his contribution has been very key to newcastle's recent revival.
If u say the players i mentioned are below average,then all the players keshi invited are useless.
Agreed the generation of players we have now are less talented.
But at least invite d best outside d less talented.
We may not have d talents to compete on d world stage,but in africa and against african teams like sudan,congo,SA ??,We have relatively good enough talents to compete,to even dominate africa.
Our less talented generation of players are better than the generation of players of many african countries.
So my brother players only made up about 5 % of our problem.
Keshi 60 %,NFF 35 %.

Goke7:
you see our problem, we easily make excuses for the failure of our so called favourite Nations, but castigate ours at every slight mistake. Spain failed at the world cup because they decided to stick to their aging players cos of past glory where they had emerging young stars from real and athletico madrid, what do you expect from players like torres, aging xavi and iniesta whose hunger for the game has nosedived. De Bosque goofed big time but you guys will not bash him because he's white skin. The Spanish FA knows this and that's why they've left him knowing its not his fault entirely.

Keshi came and brought up hungry players into our team and got immediate success, yet we castigated him and started campaigning for him to bring back old and tired legs all in the name of experience with likes of yobo, uche and martins, some were even calling for the likes of taiwo and yakubu sef. Keshi decided to compromise to keep his job by inviting some of these old hags and what do we have now, back to square zero and you think I will join you to bash keshi and make excuses for Des bosque.

My brother Let's be objective for once!

So keshi recalling uche and yobo was the reason we failed to qualify ??.
Una funny oh.

thegoodjoehunt3:

Look at the list of Club ranking. CSKA is not in the top 50. Before you put CSKA over Ajax. I said we do not even have a regular starter in one of the top clubs. Even South Africa (Which I rate poorly) has a starter in Ajax. This shows how lonely we have fallen. So trying to prove South Africa is a poor team shows my point.

If South Africa is so poor, how come they can develop their local league to help their team grow and we can not.

Our problem is beyond Coach Keshi.
http://footballdatabase.com/ranking/world/1

AJAX is NOT A TOP CLUB.Ajax is an average club and so is cska moscow and others.
That is some shit unrecognized ranking.If the ranking is not from FIFA or UEFA then its shit.
Mention 4 south-african players playing in any of the top 5 leagues in europe.
So serrero is the only south-african player u know ?

thegoodjoehunt3:
Ajax has won the last four of the Eredivisie League title. They are a top European club. Respected by great clubs. Serero is a top player there. Which of our top players is a regular in a top club? None. Face it, our football decayed until Coach Keshi came.

Our league is not as developed as that of the South Africans. They are reaping the reward of their hard work.

There is no need talking too much. Write out your top eleven that Coach Keshi would have called who are starters in top clubs.

Aside serrero all other south-african players either play in d psl or are bench-warmers in some poor european clubs.You cant compare with nigeria.
On serrero and ajax u've shouting about........
The eredivisie is currently ranked as the 9th best league in europe having dipped in quality in recent years.
Ajax presently is no better than cska moscow,ahmed musa's club.
The russian league is currently ranked as the 5th best league in europe even ahead of the french ligue 1 and far ahead of 9th placed eredivisie.
And cska moscow with ahmed musa have won the league title consecutively in d the last 3 seasons.
And musa has been one of their best players,scoring for fun.
Because ajax are champions in an average league and go to d UCL to make up numbers doesn't mean they are a bigger club than mid-table epl clubs newcastle(sammy ameobi) or stoke city(Moses).
Rantie is south africa's top striker,a bench-warmer for AFC bournemouth in d championship.
Can u compare with Uche who is d top striker for villarreal a top 6 team in d la liga ??.Scored
14 goals last season,5 so far dis season.
Or Abiola dauda vitesse's top striker ?
The following players have been playing regularly to an extent this season and would have added something to our team if they were invited:-

Leon Balogun-Darmsadt
Nedum Onuoha-QPR
Joel Obi-Inter Milan
Sammy Ameobi-Newcastle
Abiola dauda-vitesse
Chinedu Obasi-Schalke 04
Victor Moses-Stoke city
Ramon azeez-Almeria(if used in his right position)

Can u pls List only 4 south-african players(regular or bench-warmer) in any of the the top 4 leagues in europe(EPL,Bundesliga,La liga,Serie A) ?
You've only been shouting serrero,sererro !

Algeria's Yacine brahimi has been named the 2014 bbc african player of the year.

Great news for nigeria !!.Algeria's Brahimi and our Vincent enyeama are the last men standing for the BBC African player of the year award which would be announced an hour from now.
Last year's winner yaya toure,gervinho and Aubameyang are out of the race as they got fewer votes.
The winner would be announced at 6:35 pm nigerian time today.

[quote author=thegoodjoehunt3 post=28463208]Coach Del Bosque had a terrible World Cup with some of the best talents. However, he was retained. Coach Keshi does not have on regular star in a top club playing for him. How do you want him to perform?

Even Cerero of South Africa is a regular for Ajax.

By the way, can you point where I compared Coach Keshi to Coach Del Bosque.

I just pointed out a federation that continued with a coach despite poor results.[/quote
]
"Cerrero is a regular for ajax".
Lol
So are u trying to say south-africa has more talents than nigeria ?.
If the team keshi used was full of bench'warmers,then only keshi should be blamed,because nobody chose players for him.
He prefered to select unthinkable bench-warmers,even from some of the worst leagues in d world over players that were playing regular club football.
Even the WEAK team keshi used during the qualifiers was far better in terms of individual players than south-africa or any other team in our group.
Apart from serrero which other SA player plays regularly for a top club ??.
SA's top scorer rantie(the guy that destroyed our defence)is a bench-warmer in championship side AFC bournmouth.
Keshi is both at fault for not selecting the best possible talents,and not making good use of the ones he invited.
So dont use mumu excuses to defend keshi.
From your posts it is obvious that u are VERY sentimental.
Try to be objective at times.

Nigeria yet again dominates the trimmed down shortlist of 5 for the CAF african player of the year.
CSKA Moscow winger ahmed musa,Lille shot-stopper Vincent enyeama along with Ghana's Asamoah gyan,Ivory coast's Yaya toure and Gabon's Emerick Aubameyeng are the last men standing in contention for the award.