Manchester United of England striker, Odion Jude Ighalo has received a strong charge to rain goals for The Red Devils in their first match of the English Premier League this season, when they go out in battle against Crystal Palace, megasportsarena.com reports.
Heading into Saturday’s match against the side that bought Nigerian-born dazzler, Eberechi Eze from Queens Park Rangers this summer, Ighalo and his pals have the unsavoury rating of blunt edges from their last pre-season friendly on Saturday, which could put them at a disadvantage against The Eagles, who started last weekend with victory on the opening day of the campaign.
Consequently, as they head into Saturday’s game against Eze’s side at Old Trafford, Ighalo and other attackers in United’s squad have received a wake-up call from their coach, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who admitted he was disappointed that his strikers failed to find the net in Saturday’s 1-0 loss to Aston Villa in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Villa Park.
Ighalo started for The Red Devils in a 4-2-3-1 formation and got 61 minutes on the pitch and saw his claim for a penalty waved away by the referee shortly after Villa’s new signing, Ollie Watkins scored the only goal of the game in the 16th minute; while the former Super Eagles’ striker was eventually replaced by Teden Mengi.
Before going off, Ighalo almost snatched an equaliser during a frantic goalmouth scramble just before half time, but The Villans’ defence managed to maintain a clean sheet, which left the Nigerian star getting flaks along with United’s other attackers on the day.
That has left Ighalo, Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford, Daniel James and Anthony Elanga with a huge task to redeem themselves against Palace this weekend, following their blunt edges in The Red Devils’ loss to Villa, against who Solskjaer admitted there was lack of flare in his attack,
Solskjaer said: “We need to be more clinical, we need to score those goals because then you go home happy. Then again, the result wasn’t the main thing. We said at half-time that we were playing some great football at times and getting into some fantastic positions, but there was a lack of sharpness and maybe a lack of lungs because it’s early doors.”
