A quintet of Nigerian Championship stars are battling for promotion to the Premier League
While the Premier League title race looks to have become an inexorable march for John Obi Mikel’s Chelsea, the battle for promotion is wide open.
The top seven teams in the Championship—from Bournemouth down to Brentford—are separated by only seven points, and with 15 points still to play for, all will be harbouring hopes of automatic promotion. At the very least, they will be targeting the play-offs, and a chance to seal passage to ‘the Greatest League in the World’ via a trip to Wembley.
There are no fewer than five Nigerians are wrapped up in the race for promotion, although as they represent four different clubs, at least one will be disappointed by the end of the campaign.
Ighalo | Enjoying one of the biggest years of his career
After 41 matches, new Nigeria international Odion Ighalo looks the best-placed to secure automatic promotion. The Hornets currently sit third in the league table, but are only one point of first-placed Bournemouth and level on points with second place Norwich City.
In fact, things are so tight that Watford are only behind the Canaries because they have a worst goal difference…by two goals!
Ighalo has been an inspirational figure this season for Watford, who have achieved great success in the league despite already being on their fourth manager of the campaign.
While there has been great upheaval in the dugout, Ighalo has been a consistent menace in the league, scoring 19 goals in 30 league appearances.
Ighalo has averaged 15 goals from the 15 games when he has started as a striker, and scored three in the four when he has started a match as an attacking midfielder.
This versatility has greatly helped Watford, who can either play him in tandem with the lethal Troy Deeney, or just behind the powerful Birmingham-born hitman.
Ighalo took his time to find his feet in the Championship, having left Granada in the summer, but has been in exceptional form since the turning of the year—13 of his 19 goals have come in 2015.
Omeruo | Has been part of Boro's excellent defence
At the weekend, Ighalo scored as Watford leapfrogged Middlesbrough with a 2-0 victory.
Kenneth Omeruo, the most high-profile Nigerian in the Championship, was absent having been injured in action for the Super Eagles against South Africa during the recent international break.
The centre-back has featured 18 times for the club this season during his loan move from Chelsea. Before injury struck, he often found that the likes of Ben Gibson, Daniel Ayala, Jonathan Woodgate and fellow Pensioners loanee Tomas Kalas have reduced his game time.
Omeruo is a composed presence, and will be learning valuable lessons during his tutelage in the physical second tier, but the evidence of this season doesn’t quite suggest that he will be ready to step into the Chelsea first team next season—as he apparently claimed in a recent interview with the BBC.
It is worth noting, however, that Boro have conceded only 32 goals in 41 matches. This is by far the best defensive record of the chasing pack and they have let in eleven fewer than table-toppers Bournemouth.
It remains to be seen what role Omeruo will play in the rest of Boro’s season following his latest injury setback.
Odubajo | Born to be a right-back?
The worst team, defensively speaking, in the top seven are Brentford. The West Londoners have conceded 55 goals so far this term (the 14th-worst in the division), but their excellent offensive qualities—they are the fifth-highest scorers in the league—have made for an unlikely success story.
The Bees only returned to the second tier last year for the first time since the 1950s, but under the superb (if troubled) leadership of Matthew Benham and Mark Warburton they have taken the division by storm.
Rather than attempt to recruit established Championship players, the pair put their faith in young, hungry stars.
One of them—Nigerian Moses Odubajo—has proven to be an excellent, versatile purchase.
The 21-year-old made his name at Leyton Orient, where he was one of the finest wingers in the third tier. However, after missing out on promotion last term, he has been reinvented at Brentford as a full-back, a position he has adapted to with little trouble.
Last month, Bees coach Warburton backed Obudajo to make it in the Premier League one day—but will be also eek out a future with the Super Eagles?
I am a fan of Efe Ambrose, but his failings at right-back have been well-documented—might the former Orient wideman be a ready-made replacement?
Ikeme | A long wait for the top table
Finally, having won their last four games in a row, Wolverhampton Wanderers find themselves in sixth place. They are in superb form (no other side in the division have won four of their last five) and it is not impossible that they could catch Norwich in second place.
Wolves boast both the most experienced and the least experienced of the Nigerian quintet chasing promotion.
Goalkeeper Carl Ikeme may only be 28, but he has been at Molineux for over 12 years, having joined the club at the academy. He has been sent out on loan nine times in the intervening time but has finally established himself as the club’s number one—he will be desperate to prove his worth as a Premier League stopper having come so close on many occasions.
At only 28, it’s not unreasonable to hope that Ikeme could one day emerge as Vincent Enyeama’s successor.
Ikeme is joined in the Wolves defence by Dominic Iorfa, whose father (also named Dominic Iorfa) played four times for the Super Eagles.
The younger Iorfa is only taking his first strides in the game, but already, at 19 and an England U20 international, he has stood out among his peers in the second tier and won Wolves’ Young Player of the Month award in January.
While Iorfa is a strong aerial presence for Wolves—unlike the aforementioned Odubajo—he also loves to plough forward like the Brentford man.
For now, the thought of the two men vying for a spot at the right of the Super Eagles’ defence might be the stuff of dreams, but the possibility of a much greater Nigerian presence in the EPL is moving closer to reality.
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