Wigan Athletic of England defender Leon Aderemi Balogun is pointing at some external factors, which he calls the ‘downside of football’ for the struggles that have rocked his career at club and national team levels, megasportsarena.com reports.
Even as he took a loan move to Wigan at the start of this year from English Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion things have not really shaped up in the best possible way for him and the former Fortuna Dusseldorf, Darmstadt and SV Mainz of Germany stopper admits it is a tough situation that is confronting hm.
So it has been since his very first outing with the Super Eagles when he got injured as a second half substitute n an international friendly against Mexico then missed the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, on account of a relapsing injury, which has turned out to be his undoing again since joining Brighton two years ago.
Despite securing a temporary move away from American Express Community Stadium, due to the torrid time he had with The Seagulls, Balogun is yet to find his top form and is still seeking a return to the Super Eagles’ mainframe, even as he appears to have stabilised at Wigan, and he has now reflected on how things became really difficult for him at Brighton.
The mulatto defender, who was born in Germany but opted to switch allegiance and play for Nigeria in 2014, joined Brighton in the summer of 2018 from Mainz, on a two-year deal, but the only fond memory he has of his days with The Seagulls was scoring against Crystal Palace in an English Premier League game in December 2018, only 25 seconds after getting off the bench.
Sadly, Balogun has admitted that that performance did not help change his situation, as he went on to struggle for game time and played only eight EPL games during his debut campaign in England and did not make a single league appearance for the side in the first half of this season, before making the switch to The Latics.
His failure to feature regularly cost him his starting spot in Nigeria’s squad and he was dropped from a chain of matches with the national team, but Balogun insists he did his best to turn the tide around for himself at American Express Community Stadium but to no avail before leaving to join Wigan in a temporary deal, which he hopes will revive his fortunes once coronavirus fades away.
Balogun told the Super Eagles media: “What happened at Brighton? Nothing, that’s the problem. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you, I have done my best; I have done everything I could. I have pretty much left no stone unturned but it wasn’t supposed to be.
“I am not going to speak bad about anyone, I know that I have done everything I could, I don’t think that everything was always fair on my part but that’s football. There are choices that have been made and those choices were not made on my behalf or not made in my favour and I have to accept them, that’s more so like another downside of the game that happens.”
