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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Called Out For Unfair Treatment Of Odion Ighalo

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Called Out For Unfair Treatment Of Odion Ighalo

Ighalo is currently on loan at Manchester United and has only played a total of 90 minutes in the Premier League since.

Anonymous

Anonymous

By Mike Parrott

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been called out for his supposed 'unfair treatment' of Odion Ighalo. The Nigerian is currently on loan at United with it set to expire in January 2021.

Manchester United begin their Premier League campaign on September 19th and will be hoping to continue their impressive unbeaten streak since January 2020.

Even though a lot of said streak can be attributed to recently-crowned Manchester United Player of the Year, Bruno Fernandes, Odion Ighalo also joined the Red Devils in the January transfer window in a loan deal from Shanghai Shenhua.

Deemed a plan B option after missing out on the permanent signing of Joshua King, Ighalo went on to score five goals and create an assist in a total of 19 games, or 599 minutes.

509 of those minutes came in cup competitions though, with Ighalo compiling a total of 90 minutes in 11 games in the Premier League, with the Nigerian being unable to score in the English league.

Former Nigerian Super Eagle Victor Ezeji has urged Solskjaer to give Ighalo the opportunity to impress.

He told Goal : "Every coach believes in his starting XI and to be very fair to Ighalo, the Covid situation did not help him, because if not for Covid, [Marcus] Rashford would still have been out until the end of the season.

"And when Rashford recovered, because of the belief Ole has in Rashford, he had to bring him back into the team.

"And then you can see that [Anthony] Martial was firing on all cylinders, same as [Mason] Greenwood, so there was no way Ole was going to drop any of those guys for Ighalo."

United have been rumoured to be interested in a few strikers on the current transfer market. With the aforementioned King being a favourite of Solskjaer, the two worked together in the United reserves early in King's career.

Ezeji continued on criticising Solskjaer's inability to give Ighalo extended minutes in the Premier League.

"But where I will fault Ole is that even when these guys are not meeting up in some games, I think he should have tried Ighalo.

"It wasn't really nice that a player's contract was renewed and you didn't even allow him to play up to 20 minutes of any Premier League game. That is not encouraging. It makes a player lose all the confidence he has built over time."

What do you think of Ole Gunnar Solksjaer's treatment of Odion Ighalo?

Let us know in the comments below.

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Topics: Football News, Football, Manchester United, Premier League