SSC Napoli of Italy striker, Victor Osimhen struck his sixth goal since joining the Italian Serie A club, and it came barely 24 hours after he got another broadside from a former player-turned-pundit that has been critical of the lad’s huge transfer fee from Lille Metropole of France.
With Osimhen having struggled for form since becoming Napoli’s costliest signing ever, many analysts and football experts have questioned the rationale behind the hefty deal mustered by the Naples-based club’s coach, Gennaro Gattuso, but the youngster now appears to be silencing all his antagonists.
Megasportsarena.com reports that such it was when he netted again on Thursday, few hours after he had a verbal knock from ex-Napoli midfielder, Giacomo Tedesco, as Osimhen hit target in a 5-2 trouncing of visiting SS Lazio at Diego Armando Maradona Stadium.
Having struggled to deliver in the first five months of the season due to a combination of loss of form, injuries, COVID-19 infection and a red card in the UEFA Europa League, Osimhen is battling back to reckoning and made hay once against after replacing Dries Mertens with 19 minutes left.
Just nine minutes after his introduction to the game, the Chile 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup top scorer, who has also previously played for VfL Wolfsburg of Germany and Sporting Charleroi of Belgium, was celebrating, after he smashed a shot inside the near post for Napoli’s fifth goal of Thursday’s home game.
Osimhen has now netted six goals in the Italian top-flight, four of which have come in his last eight games, plus two assists to his name, while helping Napoli climb to within three points of AC Milan, who are second in the table, with six games left to play this season.
His latest goal could to a large extent lighten the weight of the latest broadside he received from Tedesco, who earlier recommended that Osimhen should be sold, in order for The Parthenopeans to reduce financial weight on paying a hefty star-studded squad.
Although Osimhen has now notched six goals in 23 appearances across all competitions, his stats are not as high as they were during his days with Charleroi and Lille, even as he enacted four in his last seven matches in the Serie A and three in his first 16.
Several pundits, including transfer market expert, Gianluca Di Marzio, have criticized Napoli for spending so much on signing the product of Ultimate Strikers Football Academy of Ojota, Lagos for a club record fee of 70 million euro and Tedesco pointedly declared that, although Osimhen is a promising player, the lad should be sold this summer.
Tedesco told Il Sogno Nel Cuore on 1 Station Radio: “He is a promising player and could possibly bring cash into the coffers. I am convinced that Gattuso’s team will reach the Europe that matters, the matches are difficult for everyone and the Azzurri are there.”
