Odion Ighalo image 25

Odion Ighalo Nigeria flag

2020-21 Performances

View full 2020-21 profile

4.6 Season Average Rating
Appearances
4
Goals
0
Assists
0
Yellow cards
0
Status
Not open for further replies.
He needs time to build his match fitness as he has hardly played for 6 months and it showed from his last few appearances
 
We brought him from China. I don't know what kind of expectations people had.
 
I actually thought he was a lot better tonight than he has been
 


I watched this earlier as my brother and I were talking about who he linked up with when he played for Watford (my brother seemed to recall a second striker other than Deeney, but anyway) and what a player he looks; a nightmare in behind, can hold it up fantastically, he harries defenders and keepers to force mistakes and the finishing is superb. Time takes it toll and being out of top level football for a while can have a negative effect for sure, but he doesn't seem to be excelling at anything just at the moment. Even his touch and strength to hold the ball up and bring others into play has gone this year.
 
He is now the player I thought he would be when we signed him. This is a guy playing in China for a paycheck who was never top level to begin with.
 
What happened to him? Great form before the Premier League went into lockdown break, and since then has been terrible.
 
Where's that bloke who came on for the last 5 minutes against City? I want that guy back.
 
12OunceEpilogue said:


I watched this earlier as my brother and I were talking about who he linked up with when he played for Watford (my brother seemed to recall a second striker other than Deeney, but anyway) and what a player he looks; a nightmare in behind, can hold it up fantastically, he harries defenders and keepers to force mistakes and the finishing is superb. Time takes it toll and being out of top level football for a while can have a negative effect for sure, but he doesn't seem to be excelling at anything just at the moment. Even his touch and strength to hold the ball up and bring others into play has gone this year.
Click to expand...

Getting comfortable at low level football take more toll than anything. He looks great in highlight, but even at Watford, it takes the work of the team to put him in favorable position to play for his strength. Here reading people, I feel like people was expecting Deeney and Ighalo roll into one performance.

Never warm to his signing in the first place. Just an excuse of back up signing after failing to land Haaland. Just put an high release clause if it meant to keep him for few seasons. In a meanwhile there is no stopping us to look at other forward, while benefiting from quality from Haaland for that period, starter or back up.
 
Last edited:
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
It’s valid because the implication was that’s what we are paying. The only thing that matters from our perspective is what we pay him.
Click to expand...
And what we pay him is £130k a week plus a hefty loan fee which averaged over the loan takes it to the same as £300k a week. But actually worse because we had to pay it up front.

A ridiculous amount of money for a ridiculously shit footballer.
 
That was a bit of a travesty wasn't it? It's almost impossible for an elite athlete to maintain form when not playing competitively for so long, but I think maybe this ship has sailed.

Greenwood, Martial and Rashford should now be the central choice, and mix and match the wide positions.
 
To be fair, the way he and others like Fred, McT etc were frozen out of games post-covid even when we were up by several goals is on Ole.

I still think he can be a good player for us and do a job simply because positionally he plays a very orthodox role. His match rhythm is definitely off though. I'm sure he'll get enough minutes to pick it up.

James though, yikes. His confidence is completely shot. Needs some serious coaching from Ole.
 
I thought his performance is much improved today compared to his last outing? Yeah he's not good enough to perform week in week out, but he's good enough to be a squad player and if his fitness improves a bit more, it would be perfect. Or else, I think thats why we're looking to loan/bring in the strikers we've been talking about the last few days.
 
Had one or two decent moments going forward but left acres in behind that Bailly had to cover.
 
I think we're done with him now really, if we can elevate Greenwood and maybe bring in one more supplemental faster mover then we're golden going forward.
 
-Supreme- said:
He needs time to build his match fitness as he has hardly played for 6 months and it showed from his last few appearances
Click to expand...
This, plus put bob geldof or the pms specialist (martial) in that same team as he is been stuck in and watch them struggle just as bad, as James and Mata offer feck all for him to play off and neither does the shit MF behind him.
 
His fall from grace is amazing, it wasn't that long ago that a part of the caf was trying to convince everyone that he was better than Martial.
 
JPRouve said:
His fall from grace is amazing, it wasn't that long ago that a part of the caf was trying to convince everyone that he was better than Martial.
Click to expand...

What's weird is that he looked fitter when he first joined than he does now. He just looks too sluggish at the moment.
 
Eugenius said:
What's weird is that he looked fitter when he first joined than he does now. He just looks too sluggish at the moment.
Click to expand...

He didn't look fit at all when he joined, he barely played during the first month, he started to play for us 3 weeks after he joined and it was short cameos.
 
Chinese League ended on 1 Dec, so he's basically had 10 months with barely any games and it's showing.

fecking mental that we extended his loan without any intention of using him.
 
Devil81 said:
My guess is we will cut short his loan spell.
Click to expand...
I think so too. Don't know whether we can do that or if there's a financial penalty, but I'll be surprised if he's registered in the Premier League squad when they're formally announced by the PL.

Happy for him that he got to fulfill his dream, but right move to end this now.
 
JPRouve said:
His fall from grace is amazing, it wasn't that long ago that a part of the caf was trying to convince everyone that he was better than Martial.
Click to expand...
Seems ludicrous now but wasn't at the time. Tony wasn't firing on all cylinders and Ighalo was a muscular target that made things happen around him, for a short spell at least. God knows where it's all disappeared to. We seem almost unique in the way ALL our players seem to time their poor patches together.
 
We've got 1 league Cup game left before Xmas haven't we? What is actually the point of keeping him now?
 
Still ill said:
Seems ludicrous now but wasn't at the time. Tony wasn't firing on all cylinders and Ighalo was a muscular target that made things happen around him, for a short spell at least. God knows where it's all disappeared to. We seem almost unique in the way ALL our players seem to time their poor patches together.
Click to expand...

It was ludicrous then because he wasn't playing particularly well and Martial was playing well from February to the end of the season, Ighalo made nothing happen around him, he barely played and had cameos in games where Martial had already scored. Keep in mind that Ighalo plays his first game on February 17th, from that point Martial scored or assisted a goal almost every other game, in the meantime Ighalo played a total of 90 minues in the league, now to his credit he has had 3 or 4 good games against poor teams in cups.
 
Nou_Camp99 said:
We've got 1 league Cup game left before Xmas haven't we? What is actually the point of keeping him now?
Click to expand...
And that's Everton away in arguably our best chance of a trophy. It would be a sad end to see him released now but can anyone see him playing for us again?
 
Doesn't anyone find it curious that pre-lockdown many here were full of praise for his contributions, including his eye for goal and his clever flicks and interchanges? It's a different Ighalo post-lockdown.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.