Odion Ighalo keen desire to play for his new English Premier League side, Manchester United, will be rewarded in earnest following confirmation by manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer that the Nigerian will expectedly make his debut against Chelsea next Monday.
Solskjaer hinted that the 30-year-old forward who moved to Old Trafford on a six-loan deal from Shanghai Shenhua will travel with the squad to Stamford Bridge, adding the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) top scorer ‘is desperate to play for us.’
Though Ighalo has been ‘holed up’ in Manchester while his teammates are away on a six-day winter break camping in Spain, Solskjaer said he was already impressed with the player’s puritanical devotion and enthusiasm.
“Yeah, he (Odion Ighalo) is going to travel with us (against Chelsea),” Solskjaer was quoted as saying in an interview with the club’s website from the Marbella Football Centre in Spain. “We will just see his fitness work this week and I think we will get him sharp.
“We want to integrate him as quickly as we can because, of course, he is desperate to play for us,” added the manager.
Ighalo, a lifelong supporter of Manchester is already being tagged as the Reds’ passionate new no.25’ has been working his socks with personalised training at the gymnasium of GB (Great Britain) Taekwondo and under strict supervision of performance coach Wayne Richardson.
“He was doing his pre-season, he had just started that out in China,” Richardson told the Manchester Evening News. “He’s come totally professional, totally prepared. He’s not come off the cuff or anything.
He knows what he wants and what he wants to do.”