Watford manager Quique Flores has hailed the impact of Odion Ighalo after the Nigeria forward scored a brace to help the Hornets beat West Ham 2-0 in their Premier League clash at Vicarage Road on Saturday.
Meanwhile, out-of-favour Super Eagles striker Brown Ideye Ideye continued his fine form at Olympiakos as he hit the back of the net in his team’s 2-0 defeat of Piraeus in their Greek Premier League game on Saturday.
The Vicarage Road defeat ended West Ham’s unbeaten away record in the Premier League. The Hammers, who had defeated Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City on the road this season, had no answer to the pace and power of Ighalo as he upped his tally to seven goals for the season.
Quique says he is happy Ighalo, who joined Watford from Spanish La Liga outfit Granada while they were in the Championship last season and scored 20 goals in 38 appearances, turned down a £10m to Chinese side Hebei China Fortune in the summer to stay.
“It is not just the scoring but the work rate of Ighalo is really good for the team, he knows his defensive position and I think he always puts in a high performance,” Sports Mole quoted Flores as saying.
The former Valencia and Real Madrid defender maintains the 26-year-old former Flying Eagles captain made the right decision in rejecting a switch to Hebei China Fortune.
“Ighalo took a very important decision to stay at Watford. It was a brilliant idea,” Belfast Telegraph quoted Flores as saying on Sunday.
“He is a wonderful man who stayed here because his future here at Watford is really big. He is already an important player for us.”
Ighalo praised Flores’ tactic for Saturday’s encounter, saying it helped him on the pitch.
“I’m happy about my goals, but I’m most pleased about the team’s performance. We played very well and we deserved the win and the three points,” the player, who scored a goal to help Nigeria beat Cameroon 3-0 in their friendly affair in Belgium last month, told Watford’s official website.
He (Flores) added, “He told us to try and keep (Dimitri) Payet as much away from the goal as possible, because if he’s very close he’s very dangerous, so we were always pushing and letting him come back to get the ball.
“I think that really worked, we really pushed ourselves and we took the chances that came, so we are very happy about the game.”
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