Odion Ighalo was on target again for Al Hilal who held Al Nassr to a 2-2 draw in the Saudi Arabia topflight on Monday, Completesports.com reports.
Ighalo has now scored in four straight games and has also found the back of the net in his last three league games.
Monday’s goal saw Ighalo take his tally in the Saudi Arabia elite division to six.
Last season Ighalo netted 12 goals in 13 appearances for Al Hilal.
Also Read: Saka Equals Henry’s Arsenal Record In 3-1 Win Vs West Ham
The former Watford striker put Al Hilal the lead in the 10th minute before Talisca drew Al Nassr level on 56 minutes.
Salem Al Dawsari put Al Hilal 2-1 up on 65 minutes but with two minutes left to play Abdulrahman Ghareeb scored to rescue a point for Al Nassr.
The draw means Al Hilal are in fourth place on 21 points, just two points adrift of leaders Al Nassr in the 16-team league table.
By James Agberebi
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COMMENTS
Form ,they say ,is temporary but class is permanent. Im now convinced that Igaho is pure class and should be in the SE set up. If Abubarka of Cameron playing in same league of which ighalo is highest goal scorer ,was the saviour of Cameron in the world cup I see no reason why igaho shouldn’t be around at least so the young ones can learn a thing or two from him. Furthermore who knows if he would have scored against Ghana had he started both games. Rohr was right when he asserted that Igaho has this natural propensities to sniff goals. We need him in SE for now
THANK YOU my BROTHER 442.PLEASE give me your PHONE NUMBER so I can TRANSFER 5MB WORTH of DATA to you so you can continue to use it in giving us NICE COMMENTS like this…
Thank you comrades.@Monkey Post,God bless u too. My digits 09069290082. Thanks in advance for the MB
What I love most about Nigerians is that they do not know themselves. In any Nigerian endeavor, if you lower a set standard that standard would become debased to the lowest common denominator. This is a law of Nigerian behavior that every Nigerian should memorize if they want this country to progress.
If you say, that a Nigerian striker in his early thirties should play for the SE because the Cameroonians or Italians field over thirties in their national team, this is what would happen.
Soon others would campaign for another player say a winger to also play. The Nigerians as justification would say that because Ighalo from the East is allowed to play so also should Musa another over thirty from the North. When you argue that Ighalo is playing well, they will say, “is it because Ighalo is from your hometown.”
Then the people from the West would come and say why are they discriminating against older Yoruba players by not fielding them in the SE, and soon there would be a campaign to field Odegbami in the SE. Then the Igbos would complain that how come the Yorubas are allowed to field a 60-year-old, the SE must have a 60-year-old player from the East and they’ll start agitating for Christian Chukwu to play in the SE.
This is how Nigeria works, not until the SE is filled with pensioners from all parts of the country and we have a national team of the lowest common denominator would Nigerians be satisfied. Then after destroying the national team Nigerians would start praying that they need player leadership or a messiah-like Lionel Messi to save the SE.
Ighalo has had his time, he’s shown us his capability, in that time. Let him and others like him make space for a younger generation. Ighalo was a capable striker, he did not distinguish himself as one of the world’s best to be deserving of an intergenerational place in the SE like Messi, Modric, Pepe, or Ronaldo have done with their respective national teams.
We should look to developing the young!
442 is making a VALID POINT here and your own is to JOKE with it…
I mean how on EARTH will someone call for ODEGBAMI or CHRISTAIN CHUKWU?
Abeg shift joor…
Uptil now this monkey post still struggles with sense? Lol
The fact remains that Ighalo, like all other Nigeria eligible strikers out there, is eligible for Super Eagles selection if his club performances, week in week out, justify it.
Without going around the house, if you are not an Ighalo fan, just come out and say it rather that write justification sound bites for excluding an otherwise eligible centre forward.
To be clear, I am not a fan of Ighalo per se. Even if he were 10 years younger than he is, I would still advocate very many Nigeria eligible centre forward to be invited in Ighalo’s place. And this is for one reason only: I am not overly in love with Ighalo’s style of centre forward play. In short, he doesn’t really excite me.
But I am not in favour of excluding players on the account of their age. If they are still fit and flying then it is the coach’s prerogative to invite such a player.
Having said that, I agree with you 100% that a team should not be largely populated by “older players”. I think a team populated largely with players in their mid to late 30s will struggle in the modern day pressing game and such a team will likely struggle with younger opponents.
I think a healthy mixture and blend of youth
and experience is important for any team hoping to excel. So I think it will be unhealthy for a Super Eagles 23 man squad to be populated by more than 4 to 5 players of Ighalo’s age.
But, for me, to single an Ighalo out for exclusion seems unfair to me. I am not advocating for Ighalo’s invitation or exclusion from the Super Eagles. I am merely leaving it to the coach to decide whom to invite whereupon I will respect his decision.
A justification based on his weekly performance in the Saudi league? Most sensible teams start their rebuilding after the end of their world cup campaign. This is the time when you give young prospects opportunities, but you guys in this interregnum between world cups want to keep the SE team static by inviting older players.
I can understand if we had qualified for the world cup and you wanted to invite a few senior experienced players to the World cup, but to campaign now, when we should be thinking of rebuilding with new talents is beyond crazy.
Mark my word, the campaign for Ighalo is a disguise or as the white man would call it a ‘stalking horse’ to keep inviting Musa i.e. ‘Monkey Post’ and others are using their Ighalo campaign as a device to justify invitations to a third party.
They know that 3rd party cannot stand on his own performance so they construct a device so that they can claim age-comparative justification to invite a player whose current form does not merit an invite to the SE.
And the word ‘merit’ is important, Nigeria has destroyed that word in every institution by creating loopholes that lower standards of entry. Sporting performance is based on merit, what you’re witnessing is a campaign by these same commentators to destroy merit in sports.
From Keshi to Gernot Rohr and now Peseiro, coach after coach of the Super Eagles have vowed not to discriminate Nigerian players based on the league they play. If you are good enough you should be eligible for selection.
Discrimination of Super Eagles eligible players based on their age or the league they play should be discouraged. There is something distasteful in discrimination of any sort. We should reject it!
DEO GOD will BLESS YOU…
All what their PLAYERS PLAYING in the so called TOP LEAGUES could do was to get usa R16 EXIT and WC QUALIFICATION FAILURE…
LMFAO…
Look anyone CAMPAIGNING against the RETURN of IGHALO based on AGE or HIS LEAGUE even though HE is SCORING in every GAME is just being DEVILISH and WICKED
You are the one actually discriminating here….. Going for younger players who are playing top level football in top5 leagues can never be discrimination my dear friend…..,it is called MERIT…..How can you discriminate against a player who has almost 100 caps with the national…….Rather it’s this young players that we are discriminating against……..Awoniyi Onyeka and Dennis had to get into the EPL through the back door because we refused to give them the required national team caps to get into the EPL and nobody mentioned discrimination……Dessers and Okereke have been up there interms of their performance in Europe but no national team caps for their endeavors and nobody is mentioning discrimination……Moffi had to virtually move mountains in France before he got his handful of caps and nobody mentioned discrimination……Sodiq has not really been given enough chances in the national team to my liking but I have never shouted discrimination……. Osimhen was humiliated in the last afcon he attended by sitting on the bench and only got a chance in the third place match but nobody mentioned discrimination…….Now that we want to give this young strikers a chance to pilot the affairs of out attack going forward you bring in discrimination????…… Please let us be fair in out comments here……..WHO IS REALLY BEEN DISCRIMINATED AGAINST HERE?
You got your ideas wrong completely @Akp. Players have to distinguish themselves in their clubs before invitations to SE and not the other way around
The younger upcoming players are doing more distinguishing at club level that the old players…..After all the distinguishing Raphael Onyedika and Yusuf alhassan did recently they where overlooked for an Etebo who has not done anything of note at club level for 2 season now…….After all the distinguishing done by Awoniyi at Union Berlin last 2 seasons he was still overlooked for Ighalo at that time……I can go on and on……you and I Know that this your theory of DISTINGUISHING only applies to young upcoming players not the TRUSTED SOLDIERS…….and that is the discrimination @deo should be talking about…… simple
Anybody campaigning for igalo to return to SE is either ignorant or purely wicked and mischievous…..SE has at least 6 top level strikers who are young and playing in top5 leagues at the moment…. Osimhen,Moffi,Sodiq,Awoniyi,Dennis,Dessers,okereke…..All playing in the SerieA,Epl,Laliga,and Lig1 and SE has not been able to utilize them to the fullest to bring out the best in them but it’s Ighalo that is so important to you guys?……Does Cameroun have such option in the striker position and keep inviting abubakar?……The next major tournament is far away and it’s only logical to look forward not backwards……SE needs to rebuild and take the world by surprise by play different cards from what people know us with……Not everyone that comes here to comment is actually after the progress of SE so let’s be careful the kind of comments we read…… Anyone who genuinely want the progress of SE as a team will never advocate for Ighalo at this point of our rebuilding process……Tufiakwa
@AKP , your comment is grossly illogical and uncharitable. All those players you mention where invited and played against Ghana. Where did they take Nigeria to ? Some played against Tuunisia at the AFCON .What was the rwsult? Ighalo has qualified Nigeria for the world cup before and therefore knows what it takes to play at that level.Country football is quite different from clubside football..Of all the Strikers u mention Only Osihmen has the potential to play like ighalo and yet we saw against Ghana that he is still learning and still need to be guided as far as national team is concern. I still believe if Ighalo had played home and away against Ghana he would have scored at least a goal to take Nigeria to the world cup . The guy sniff positions to stand and score thats what Rohr observed and I believe it.
So Ighalo did not play against Ghana? Musa didn’t play against Ghana? Troost didn’t play against Ghana? If Ighalo was the genius player that can make a difference why didn’t he show it in Abuja against Ghana? None of your old men showed that they are special in a way that can change games.
Thirty-plus-year-old players in other teams like Messi are singlehandedly helping their team win the world cup or like Modric winning the bronze medal. Because Ighalo helped Nigeria to qualify so no matter how old he is you think he can not only perform at international level but can also perform better than younger faster players with greater physical endurance.
Ighalo is not playing in the premier league, he is not playing in the championship, he is not even playing in the Turkish league where players go at the end of their career. He is playing in Saudi where players go more to earn a lot of money than to physically compete. Ronaldo was playing at Man U, Pepe at Porto, Messi at PSG, these 30-plus year-olds are playing at the highest levels.
Ighalo would be 37 years old by the next world cup. Most sensible countries schedule team development with the world cup timetable, and this is Nigerian 37 years old – a country where football players tell lies about their true age.
This is not the time to talk about Ighalo, this is the time of AFCON qualifications when we should blood younger players. When we qualify then we can debate whether we need the experience of Ighalo for the tournament. But for now, younger players should be the priority.
Putting all the blame on the younger players to find a perfect excuse to keep them out of the team just like calling a dog a bad name to find a perfect excuse to kill it……. Giving young players few minutes and tossing them off won’t do the magic……. Giving then few caps and judging them harshly won’t give us results…… Young players need more caps to gain experience to be able to get used to high profile international games……Or else you guys want Ighalo and musa to play into their old age…….we need to look into the future no matter how they want to paint it……truth is bitter but it’s the truth……we must face reality.
@Akp, Leave our people alone, they will never learn. The Ighalo, I saw playing in the qualifiers could bearly run…Lol. One if the things that keeps us backward in Africa is sentiments. I have stated it hear before, it is like comparing an athlete that ran 9.05 secs on sand with the one that ran 9.05 secs on the tracks. Both recorded good times but there is a distinction in the difficulty level. If you were to take me and play me amongst u10s, I will be the best player amongst them but play me amongst u17 and I don’t stand a chance. If Ighalo was banging in goals in a top 5 league, despite his age , I would not have a problem with his invite but the Saudi league for goodness sake! Yet these fans will not rest until our football is completely ruined. When they are done , they will now start dreaming of attaining the same feat of Morocco. As if Morroco towed the same inglorious path.
I have stated it before, our football is going nowhere. Come to think about it, it is the same thinking politically that has held the country shackled because when it comes to selecting a leader, we would opt for an octogenarian who is 2 decades older than the retirement age and we would call it wisdom. Oyibo will continue to progress whilst the African continent would continue to wallow in the murky waters of despair.
LMFAO…
R16 EXIT and WORLD CUP QUALIFICATION FAILURE is what all your YOUNG but INEXPERIENCED PLAYERS ACHIEVED for us yet una never WISE…