Olympiakos Piraeus and Nigeria striker Brown Ideye looks to have found his form at the Greek side and is enjoying his football again after a torrid 12 months at English side West Bromwich Albion.
A lot was expected of the former Neuchatel Xamax player when West Bromwich Albion splashed a ten club record £10 million pounds (that has since been eclipsed by Salomon Rondon’s £11.8 million pounds).
Ideye struggled for form and was in and out of the Super Eagles team to complete a year to forget for the former Flying Eagles star.
There were lots of rumours he was going to leave the Baggies in the January window but he bounced back and scored some goals for West Brom but his time at The Hawthorns was up and he eventually moved this summer to Greek giants Olympiakos.
With Olympiakos the magic is back
Ideye, though grateful for the move to Olympiakos, feels he probably was unlucky with his time at West Brom citing injuries and a change of manager as the main reasons.
“The biggest problem was that I joined the team after their pre-season and so was not able to get into the rhythm of the league early. And then I got injured, by the time I was fit the manager had been sacked”Ideye told supersport.com after his move to Olympaikos.
“Tony Pulis (the man who replaced Alan Irvine at West Brom) was a very good manager and a kind man to me. He was always encouraging me but he also had his plans and how he wanted to play. At the start of this season and after a good pre-season in which I scored a few goals I was ready but I realised he had different ideas and I was not ready to sit on the bench”.he added
And so he left.
Ideye found himself at a club that made it into the group stage of the Uefa Champions League which provided him to show why West Brom splashed all that cash to lure him away from Dynamo Kiev.
Despite injuries this term, he has chalked up three goals in seven matches with three assists to his account and was voted player of the week for the Greek side last week.
He was on target in match day three of the Uefa Champions League as Olympaikos won 1-0 away at Dinamo Zagreb ( clip below ) and also assisted in the reverse leg in Athens as the Greek side won 2-1.
The striker who has revealed his hopes to be part of the Super Eagles again after being part of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations triumph in South Africa says he is enjoying his football again in Greece.
Ideye was the unsung hero of Nigeria Afcon win as his industry and grit enabled Emmanuel Emenike to flourish and end up the tournament’s top scorer.
Much maligned for his misses in front of goal, Ideye brought much more than just goal scoring to the team.
He was the sacrificial lamb in the attack who took all the battering for Emenike and others to thrive on. Despite being part of that 2013 Afcon success,Ideye was left of Nigeria’s World Cup party.
Ideye looks to have found a new lease of life at Olympaikos and is definitely enjoying his football again insisting all he wants to do is play football and not sit on the bench.
“What I love to do best is to play football and so this opportunity was good enough for me and I am also playing the Champions League,”he told supersport in London before the Champions League game with Arsenal.
With the 27 year old leading the line for Olympiakos, the Greek side have a decent chance of qualifying for the next round of the Uefa Champions League with two games to play in the group stages.
If Ideye continues in this form and with the departure of Emmanuel Emenike from the national set up, a recall to Sunday Oliseh’s team might be within touching distance.
0 comments:
Post a Comment