The highly esteemed English Premier League resumes for the 2020/21 season on Saturday with the gusto that accompanies it already all over the place in the football circle.
While the top clubs have added finishing touches to their big squad, we have seen a remarkable acquisition of talents — quantity and quality-wise — to modest and even newly-promoted sides over the summer. Without doubt, we are in for a really interesting campaign.
This season will, at the start, see a total of five Nigerian players in Wilfred Ndidi, Kelechi Iheanacho, Alex Iwobi, Odion Ighalo and Semi Ajayi vying for the success of their respective clubs. Let’s take this time to get acquainted with their outstanding attributes, reflect on their immediate past season performance, and picture what the coming season holds for them.
Wilfred Ndidi
The 23-year-old is one of the very best ball-winning midfielders in the league. So good at what he does that Leicester fans did coin the chant ‘He’ll take the ball from you’ for him. He has enjoyed a steady rise to prominence at the King Power with his performance last season highlighting his importance in Leicester’s set-up. He had a little trouble with a persistent knee injury at the beginning of the year and his absence was duly felt in Brendan Rodgers’ team as they derailed from their quest to fight Man City for 2nd place in that particular period. The midfielder will hope for better luck this season even as the Foxes will be counting on having him always fit, especially with a return to a European competition for the first time since 2017 imminent.
Kelechi Iheanacho
Iheanacho is a natural born goalscorer and his impressive performance last season attests to that. 10 goals in 26 appearances (15 starts) in all competitions, a goal in every 131 minutes — not bad for someone playing a support role to eventual league topscorer Jamie Vardy. However looking beyond the stats, the 23-year-old has not been too meticulous with the use of the ball lately while he also easily chickens out of aerial challenges, giving Rodgers a reason to worry. In fact, he was linked with a move out of the club at some point in the concluding phase of last season. Although the transfer speculations haven’t gained traction in recent weeks and there’s every chance he still has a future with the Foxes, Iheanacho has to step up his game this time and prove to Rodgers that he is no fringe player.
Alex Iwobi
When he moved from Arsenal to Everton last year following the arrival of fellow African wideman Nicolas Pepe to the former, one would have easily thought Iwobi made the right decision for playing time’s sake. Yes he got plenty minutes of action with the Toffees, but Iwobi had a rather gloomy spell last season. He isn’t really known for his consistency but, in their just-concluded campaign, one could actually count the number of decent games he had for Everton. Now that manager Carlo Ancelotti has done a total overhaul of the Merseysiders’ midfield, one can only hope Iwobi gets the chance to flourish on the left wing in a familiar 4-2-3-1 system which the coach is apparently hoping to adopt.
Odion Ighalo
A professed ardent fan of the Red Devils, Ighalo is living his dreams at Manchester United. However, it’s sure the Shanghai Shenhua loanee will be concerned by his inability to secure substantial game time in the Premier League. Ighalo hasn’t started a league game for United yet although he has made the most of the opportunity he gets in cup game to register five goals for Ole Solskjaer’s team in their last campaign. He has until next January before his loan contract expires and he’ll definitely be hoping he can get a league goal, at least, as one of his achievements on his return to English football.
Semi Ajayi
From the heart of West Brom’s defence, Ajayi played a key role in helping The Baggies secure promotion to the topflight last season. He had a really remarkable campaign as he also got five goals to his name. Over the years he’s been comfortable playing as either a center-back or defensive midfielder and this versatility could prove vital for West Brom this season. His tremendous aerial presence will sure cause headaches (no pun intended) for Premier League forwards.
Worthy of note, Ajayi is quite prolific in front of goal (considering he’s a defensive player). He’s scored 12 goals over the past two seasons, so if you can confidently put you money on him scoring three goals minimum this season if you are into betting in Nigeria.
How well do you think these guys would impress in the new season?
Well, you can back them up on football betting sites like NetBet Nigeria and you can do that by betting on football on our football page.
