By Adeboye Amosu
Super Eagles forward, Isaac Success made his fourth consecutive start for Watford in Saturday’s 1-1 away draw against Southampton at the St Mary’s Stadium, reports Completesportsnigeria. com.
Success, who spent the entire 90 minutes on the pitch has featured in all 12 Premier League games for the Hornets this season with a goal to his name.
He has made four starts and eight substitute appearances for Javi Gracia’s men.
Success is now expected to head to Nigeria for next weekend’s 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying fixture against South Africa.
Manolo Gabbiadini gave the hosts the lead in the 20th minute, while Jose Holebas levelled scores for Watford eight minutes from time.
At the King Power Stadium, Leicester City were held to a barren draw by Burnley with Super Eagles stars, Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho in action for the Foxes.
Ndidi was on for 90 minutes in the game, while Iheanacho came in as a substitute for Marc Albrighton on the hour mark.
Ndidi has played the full 90 minutes in all of Leicester City’s 12 Premier League games this season and has netted only once.
Iheanacho has made 10 league appearances and
hit the back of the net once.
FULL RESULTS
Cardiff City2 – 1Brighton & Hove
Huddersfield Town1 – 1West Ham United
Leicester City0 – 0Burnley
Newcastle United2 – Bournemouth
Southampton1 – 1Watford
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COMMENTS
It is good that Ndidi is suspended for the match against South Africa. The guy is so overrated to the point of being unreal. The time has come for Agu to take his rightful position from Ndidi.
Left to be seen. I wouldn’t call Ndidi over rated though. He is good enough to seal an automatic starting spot in a midfield populated by: Ogenyi Onazi, John Ogu, Mikel Agu, Alhassan Ibrahim (Muazzam), Innocent Bonke, Oghenekaro Etebo, Uche Agbo, Anderson Esiti. As so much so that John Mikel Obi is confident enough to excuse himself from national duty knowing that we are in safe hands.
It is left to see if Agu gets any playing time and if he does well enough in one match to seal a starting place
Brutus, you are dreaming. Ndidi & Agu are not even in the same class. Ndidi walked straight into Leicester XI from day one while Agu struggled and ultimately could not break into Porto’s team. Ndidi currently has no competition in thr SE.Anytime he’s back he will take his position together with Mikel. I personally have watched over 50 of Ndidi’s came and I can easily say he is the most consistent Nigerian player in Europe over the last 2 years so i don’t have a clue where this Agu clamour comes from.
Comparing Mikel Agu with Ndidi is like night and day. I don’t know any other African CM better than Ndidi and in world football he’s in the same class as Kante and Casemiro. It’s just a matter of time before he moved from Leicester to a top club. He’s only 21 and will continue to improve. Mikel Agu has always been on loan since he graduated to Porto’s first team in 2012/2013. Out of all his loan spells it’s only at Setubal that he usually gets playing time because Setubal is a modest club in the Liga NOS. I’m not sure he will be ahead of Ogu against SA. In fact how he’s chosen ahead of a player like Anderson Esiti still remains a mystery to me. Bitrus will prefer Agu to Play against SA because he’s a South African LOL!
Ayphills. My name is Brutus and I am one hundred percent nigeria person.
Like somebody always reminds you, please respect your elders. We are richer than you and we are wiser as well. Go and check us out in social media and you will see all our money, cars and girls.
Hmm….so overated that his transfer valuation is worth over $50m. he walked straight into Genk team from a street team (nath boys) in lagos. Scored belgian league goal of the season, won young player of the season for all his clubs since his move to europe….walked straight into leicester FC team and filled the void Ngolo kante left behind….always one of the first name on his club abd national team list after the team captain…. he has close to or over 20 caps for the national team. he has played for all our national teams from u17 to senior national team. Yet he is overated.
Pls tell us the achievements of your underated mikel agu since moving to europe close to 10 years now…????
Isaac Success is really good.
Brutus you say,agu is not in ndidi’s class take it or leave it,ndidi two times Leicester youth player of the year.it seems you don’t watch premier league.
Yes, he is good, but not “really good”. In my opinion, one goal in ten games is not a good return for a striker.
He needs to step up his game. I will hate to see him back on the bench…
He is really good take it or leave it. If you watch how he’s been used in Javi Gracia”s Watford he plays mostly as a number 10 and not precisely playing as the top striker. You can see that in the way he usually set up Delofeu and Pereyra whenever he gets the ball. When Deeney came in he moved to the left wing. He’s one of the most Versatile forward in SuperEagles recent memory, he can play anywhere in the attack. And by the way he has 3 goals in all competition so far this season. Not bad for a player who had struggled with fitness and injuries over the last few seasons.
Ndidi Vs Agu
I see a lively debate going on here which I can’t resist but join, so who’s better Ndidi or Agu?
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For me, I will leave aside club football accomplishments for in this area, Ndidi beats Agu hands down (no contest here). The question I will seek to address centre around what makes an eloquent defensive/centre midfielder and do both players rate in qualities required:
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1) A cog that holds the whole team together: Neither is as good as say an Oliseh in this regard but Ndidi, I think, has the edge over Agu as he puts himself about more and his presence can be felt across wider space.
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2) Break up attacks and feed creative players: yet again, statistics will back up Ndidi’s dominance here.
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3) Dictate the game from deep: neither player is the quintessential deep-lying playmaker however both can interpret the role in ways that suit their own styles.
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4) Physical dominance: both players have the physical presence but Ndidi puts himself about more and covers more grounds.
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5) Running with the ball: as can be seen from the clip below, Mikel Agu exhibits the confidence to run with the ball from deep into the opponent’s area to create opportunities.
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In world and African football at the moment, Ndidi has clearly established himself as a defensive midfielder of repute. Agu should talk less and let his game do the talking.
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That said, both players interpret the role differently to exhibit pattern of play peculiar to them.
Agu has more to him than he is often given credit for.
Mikel Agu:
https://youtu.be/aMGf8F1n6BY
One cannot really compare national records because Ndidi works win hands down as Agu has not been in competitive mode with the national set up for a year. But for clubs there are plenty of similarities if one looks at stats
Both are in “mid table” premiership teams, both are rated as in the top three defensive players for their teams, both are defensive midfielders with an eye for launching attacks. Both are in clubs that complement their style of play
In terms of effectiveness within their respective teams whoscored dot com rates them as Ndidi 7.25 and Agu 7.03 in matches played this season accumulative aggregate
With this in mind and the idea that Ndidi made Agu’s call up to the national team delayed until he was suspended (Agu was finding his feet during this time and dropped from the world cup proper), Ndidi shades Agu.
Let’s see if Mikel gets have time against South Africa and how he performs in a competitive match.
Having said that, Porto (his parent club) has not been good for Nigerian players with Awaziem also finding playing time hard to come by and in their B team, Kelechi Nwakali and Musa Yahaya from 2013 golden eaglets also finding it hard to perform.
Is it good fortune that Samuel Chukwueze snubbed them over contract value and went to Villarreal?
“Ndidi would win”
Wilfred Ndidi was the player with the most impressive individual performance as Leicester City were held to a goalless draw by Burnley at King Power Stadium on Saturday evening.
Today’s game was the first time the Foxes failed to score in the Premier League this season.
Making his 12th successive start in the English topflight, the Nigeria international came close to breaking the deadlock on at least three occasions.
The Foxes number 25 headed over in the last action of the first half, his shot from distance was saved by goalkeeper Hart in the 58th minute and he saw his close range effort blocked five minutes later.
Ndidi topped the player ratings by Whoscored, scoring 7.97 out of 10 to place first ahead of Burnley duo Matthew Lowton and Charlie Taylor who got 7.58 and 7.48 respectively.
The 21-year-old had a total of five shots with two on target which was a game-high, made two key passes and won an astonishing ten aerial duels, another game-high.
The Nigerian defensive midfielder was the top interceptor with three and made two tackles over the course of ninety minutes.
I’m of the opinion we need more options in the midfield and the likes of Ifeanyi Mathew of Lillestroem, Ebere Eze of QPR, Alhassan Ibrahim of CD National etc deserve a look-in.
The coach of the Super Eagles shouldn’t limit himself to the narrow prism of some few.
Watch some of the exploits of Ifeanyi Mathew for example via this link: https://youtu.be/clOGP3kd8Rc.
He was an NPFL star I enjoyed his game. A siasia boy. We get talent shaa