Category: Sports

Championship: Iheanacho May Feature In Leeds United Vs Leicester City Clash

Iheanacho, Lookman Among Leicester Players With COVID-19 Disease - Report

Super Eagles star, Kelechi Iheanacho could potentially feature in his debut match since his return from the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) as Leicester City faces Leeds United on Friday (today).

Naija News reports that Iheanacho had been absent for approximately a month due to his participation with the Super Eagles at the AFCON 2023 finals.

Although the 27-year-old rejoined Leceister last week, he was not included in the matchday squad for the home loss against Middleborough.

Manager Enzo Maresca provided insight into the forward’s potential availability for the upcoming visit to Elland Road.

“Kele (Iheanacho) just arrived from international duty and has worked with us for some days. He is in the squad, but we will make the right decision for the next game,” Maresca said during a pre-match interview.

The encounter at Elland Road will witness the convergence of the top two teams in the Sky Bet Championship.

Leicester City presently holds a commanding lead of nine points at the pinnacle.

Theirry Henry Urges Victor Osimhen Not To Join Arsenal

Meanwhile, retired France international Theirry Henry has urged Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen not to join his former club, Arsenal.

Victor Osimhen is currently one of the most wanted strikers in the world, and the fact his current club, Napoli, has agreed to sell him this summer has given room to more speculations about his future.

Recall that Osimhen made his name in European football last season when he scored 26 goals and provided five assists in 32 league games. This performance helped Napoli to win the Scudetto and also earned him the best striker in the league award alongside the league’s highest goalscorer award.

Aside from that, Osimhen was named the CAF player of the year and also finished eighth in the 2023 Ballon d’Or ranking.

Despite these feats, Theirry Henry has urged him not to move to Arsenal, which is one of the clubs reportedly considering making a move for his signature in the forthcoming summer.

Henry, who stated this after Osimhen scored against FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League round of 16 first-leg clash with Napoli, which ended in a 1-1 draw, noted that he is looking forward to seeing what Osimhen can do in the Premier League.

“I’d like to see him now, what he can do in the Premier League or wherever he’s going or Paris Saint-Germain. Not Arsenal, I won’t go there,” Theirry Henry said on the UEFA Champions League show with CBS Sports Golazo.

“I want to see him take the next step and be more consistent with his output, but to be able to win the title with Napoli the way he did will stay in history forever, so all the best to him in his career.”

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Taiwo Awoniyi Has Best Shot-conversion Rate In English Premier League

Super Eagles Striker, Awoniyi Makes Premier League History For Nottingham

Super Eagles of Nigeria striker, Taiwo Awoniyi, currently has the best shot-conversion rate in the English Premier League for two successive seasons.

Taiwo Awoniyi, who has been struggling with different degrees of injuries since he joined the club from German Bundesliga side Union Berlin on July 1, 2022, finished last season as the player with the best shot-conversion rate, and he is currently on the verge of achieving the same feat this season.

In the two seasons, the 26-year-old Nigerian striker featured in a total of 41 league games out of a possible 76 league games due to a series of fitness issues.

The number of games Awoniyi featured in amounted to 2,352 minutes out of 6,840 minutes. In those minutes, the Nigeria international scored a total of 16 goals.

A report by Sky Sports confirmed that Awoniyi has a 28.6 percent shot conversion rate. While Manchester City forward, Erling Haaland has a 26.1 percent shot conversion rate.

The aforementioned strikers are closely followed by Callum Wilson of Newcastle United (24per percent), Diogo Jota of Liverpool (22.5 percent), and Ivan Toney of Brentford (21.4 percent).

Note that Haaland, seen as the best striker in the Premier League, currently has 52 goals across the two seasons, but that doesn’t mean he has the best shot-conversion rate in the league. When the number of games played is put side-by-side with the number of goals scored, Taiwo Awoniyi has been unstoppable this season and last season.

Recall that Awoniyi missed 11 league games last season due to injury issues, and he is on the verge of missing more games this season due to the same reason.

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Anthony Joshua Uses Fury’s Ordeal To Play Down On Ngannou’s Punch

Boxing: Anthony Joshua To Face Francis Ngannou In Saudi Arabia As Fight Confirmed

Nigerian-born British heavyweight boxer, Anthony Joshua has downplayed the power of Francis Ngannou’s punch ahead of their bout on March 8.

Before his proposed bout with Anthony Joshua, Ngannou, who gained international recognition as a UFC fighter, made his heavyweight boxing debut against British fighter, Tyson Fury last year.

To the dismay of many boxing enthusiasts, Ngannou punched Fury down in the 5th round but the British boxer was able to bounce back to win the bout via a split decision.

After the bout, Ngannou gained extraordinary attention in the world of boxing, which landed him a bout with a two-time heavyweight world champion, Anthony Joshua.

Ahead of the bout, which is two weeks away, Anthony Joshua and Francis Ngannou attended the DAZN face-off in which the Cameroonian boxer made it clear that AJ wouldn’t be able to recover from the punch that landed Fury to the ground.

Though that was the seventh time in 16 years that Fury was dropped by an opponent – once by Neven Paikich, Steve Cunningham, and four times by Deontay Wilder – Ngannou downplayed Joshua’s ability to bounce back from the kind of knockdown Fury suffered in his hands.

He said, “Yeah, I doubt that [whether Joshua would get up from the same punch Tyson got]. Tyson showed that he is very resilient, I saw him come back from a knockdown that you wouldn’t believe [against Deontay Wilder].

“He is probably one of the most resilient people out there and this is not a disrespect to AJ, but I don’t believe that AJ would have taken what Tyson took.”

In his quick response, Joshua used the opportunity to mock Fury’s high tendency to be knocked down during a boxing bout.

“Who hasn’t knocked Tyson down? So many people have knocked Tyson down”, Joshua said.

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