Nigeria forward Ahmed Musa extended his goal drought for Saudi Arabia Professional League side Al Nassr to nine games after failing to hit the back of the net in the club’s 3-2 home win against Al Ittifaq, reports Completesports.com.
Musa who recently returned to action for his club due to injury last scored for the club in a league game against Al Shabab on November 23, 2018.
He has scored five goals in 17 league appearances for Al Nassr since linking up with the club from Leicester City last summer.
Al Nassr rallied back from two goals down to win the game at the King Fahd International Stadium.
Ramon Arias opened scoring for the visitors in the 27th minute following a pass from Filip Kiss.
Kiss got Al Ittifaq ‘ s second goal of the game four minutes before the half hour mark.
Abderazak Hamdallah pulled a goal back for Al Nassr 20 minutes from time, while Fahad Bin Jumayah levelled scores for his side in the 89th minute.
Hamdallah scored the winning goal for Rui Vitoria’s men deep into the stoppage time.
Al Nassr will face Al Wahda in their next league game next week Saturday and the Nigeria international will look to get among the goals again.
By Adeboye Amosu
16 Comments
This doesn’t bother me. Musa may struggle with his club, but he usually becomes a different beast once in national colors. The team list selected by Rohr is very good. My only worry is the exclusion of Samuel Chukwueze. And after watching the Villareal-Zenit Europa game yesterday, my concerns increased. Chukwueze was a key player for the yellow submarines on the day. Almost all of Villareal’s attacks went thru him. His name was constantly on the commentator’s lips…that was how often he had the ball. It’s hard to justify his exclusion. It really is.
Chukwueze was not active for his club when the list was compiled.
Indeed. He has been on the bench for most of the past few weeks. However, based on his performance against Zenit, a strong European side, he is obviously a useful player to have in the SE squad. It is left for our coaches to keep close tabs on our players. Sometimes, not featuring regularly at their clubs does not mean a player is not good.
Unconfirmed reports have it that Chukwueze and Awoniyi are set to be named in the U23 squad list that will be released soon by Imama Amakpakabo, Who also incidentally doubles as G.Rohr’s assistant coach in the SE. The match against libya will take place around the same period as the matches of the SE. It wouldnt have been possible to name both players in both squads. So I guess there was a gentleman’s arrangement between both coaches to omit some players for the U23s while those who wouldnt be needed for the U23s were called up to the eagles
That makes a lot more sense to me. Thanks for the info.
It’s almost as if the only job for a striker is scoring goals , no word on any other contributions he made in the game (crosses, assists, key passes etc)
Even in CSKA where he played approx 184 games and scored 60+ goals and 30+ assists, there are 90 games where he did not contribute directly to goal scoring opportunities
One should not read anything to the headline that precedes the article above because there is no indication that his Saudi employers are displeased with Musa’s returns.
Why should they?
The simple fact is the Nigerian 2018 World Cup ace’s current goals-to-games ratio in Saudi Arabia – despite not scoring in 9 games – is still consistent with his career average.
At worst, Musa is roughly a 1-goal-per-4-games winger. You would expect Al Nassr to have done their homework to manage their expectations accordingly before signing the dashing speedster.
_Musa’s Career goals averages_
Examples:
-For Nigeria, Musa has 17 goals in 80 appearances (1 goal per 4.7 games).
-For VV Venlo, Musa scored 8 goals in 37 games (1 goal per 4.3 games).
– For CSKA (2012-1016), Musa scored 42 goals in 125 games (1 goal per 3 games)
Now, for Al Nassr thus far, Musa has scored 5 goals in 16 games (1 goal per 3 games).
Basically, Musa’s current goals-to-games ratio is very much consistent with his career average.
When you buy the services of Ahmed Musa, you don’t buy him for the quantity of goals but for the quality of some of the goals and the excitement that his pace brings.
Any club who does its homework well will not expect, from Musa, the kind of goals-returns you should expect from say Sadio Mane, Mo Salah or even Yakubu Aiyegbeni in his prime.
His cumulative career goals records do not tell you to expect basket full of goals.
What you should expect is a basket of pace, power and overall pristine push towards any box 18. The goals are there, but not always frequent.
You skipped something here,you failed to indicate his goals to games ratio in Leicester.Not like you to forget a thing like that especially when Leicester is obviously in the best league Musa has played in his career so far.
You forgot that or was it a deliberate action not to dent your record of him in your beautiful piece of this speed star ?
Here’s are his goal per minute ratio & contributions to goals per min ratio too.
.
CSKA – 1:247mins & 1:162mins respectively.
.
VVV – 1:331min & 1:150min respectively.
.
LCFC – 1:327mins & 1:218 mins resp.
.
AlNasr – 1:258min & 1:144mins resp.
.
Super Eagles – 1:312mins & 1:175mins.
.
Hope you now agree these figures aren’t a far cry from @ deo’s position.
In addition, the CSN reporters should stop this negative headlines. When did goal drought start becoming headlines. Why select the players you give this sort of headlines. It seems like witch-hunting. Goal drought has been common with several Super Eagles players like Kelechi, Isaac Success, Onyekweru e.t.c, without making headlines.
I’m not saying they should not be reported but it should not be the headline. Goals scoring should rather be a positive headlines and besides there are other meaningful contribution that a player can give to help their team win.
Unconfirmed reports have it that Chukwueze and Awoniyi are set to be named in the U23 squad list that will be released soon by Imama Amakpakabo, Who also incidentally doubles as G.Rohr’s assistant coach in the SE. The match against libya will take place around the same period as the matches of the SE. It wouldnt have been possible to name both players in both squads. So I guess there was a gentleman’s arrangement between both coaches to omit some players for the U23s while those who wouldnt be needed for the U23s were called up to the eagles
Thought as much.
Depending on which blogsite one reads the following are linked or are supposed to already be training with the U23 squad in Abuja already:
Tosin Kehinde (Attacking midfield – former man U under 23 now with Feirsense in Portugal), Kelechi John (Defender – Rio Ave under23 Portugal) both said to be in camp.
Also said to have been contacted are:
Sam Chukwueze, Taiwo Awoniyi, Stephen odey, Davis okereke (Spezia), Blessin olabiran, Maduka Okoye (GK Fortuna II), Lukan Zakari (Mettu Defender), Orji Okonkwo, Michael Kingsley and Sadiq Umar both of Perugia.
In fact a whole first team is said to be on their way or already there.
As for me, I’ll believe it when I see it, its like they are just bandying around names for the headlines.
Thanks Dr Drey.
Greenturf, we all know that Leicester City was Musa’s misadventure . I think it was one of the lowest points of his career.
From someone playing in Champions League every season to come and be domoted to u-23 football in Leicester only to then score 6 goals in 10 games ( 1 goal per 2 games) immediately after leaving Leicester for CSKA on loan proves that something was terrible amiss with him at Leicester.
Also, the same season he left Leicester, Musa scored 2 goals in 2.5 games for Nigeria at the World Cup (near 100% perfect record).
So, there was a method to my madness of leaving Leicester out in my piece.
But, like Dr Drey said, even if we are to scrutinise his records at Leicester you will find that overall, he scored 5 goals in 33 matches for the 1-hit-wonder club giving us a ratio of roughly 1 goal every 6 matches which is still not far off from his career average.
He really had bad time in Leicester, but the reason was not far fetched, he was having marital crisis that even made headlines while in the club. The issue finally led to the divorce. And we all know that home problems can have effect in someone’s career. Even at that time he was not starting games in Super Eagles. But immediately after he sorted his marital issues and remarried, we saw a new improved Musa. From the second loan spell in CSK, he goal ratio greatly improved to 1 goal in 2games. He took the new form to the World cup and got 2 in 3 and continued same form for club and country till maybe of late, so he can surely bounce back.
I really blame Leicester for giving up on him too soon. Rohr was patient with him and reaped the dividends when it mattered most. I strongly believe if he was still with Leicester, he would have taken the opportunity Kelechi failed to take at Vardy’s absence and make their attack much more rewarding. Maybe coach Peul will not need to be sacked. Purely my thoughts.
Good point, Ikeben. That marital situation likely weighed heavily on Musa. Having said that, he still showed flashes of his potential. Recall he grabbed a brace against Barcelona in an International Champions Cup game? O yes, he did. I just think he was not given the time and support he needed. If he had been well managed, Leicester would likely have him and Vardy today as a veritable source of goals.