By John Egbokhan
There certainly will be no love lost in the Premier League when Super Eagles rising striker,Odion Ighalo squares up against two countrymen, Brown Ideye and Victor Aichebe in tomorrow’s match day two fixture.

Odion Ighalo

The game, holding in Watford’s Vicarage Road stadium in Hertfordshire comes at a time that Super Eagles coach, Suday Oliseh is busy compiling the names of the foreign-based players that will be invited to join the 17 local based already in camp ahead of next month’s 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match away to Tanzania.

Nigeria are in the same group with Egypt, who presently top the table on goals difference, leaving the Eagles with no other option than to beat Tanzania to stand any chance of toppling the Pharaohs from the summit and stay on course to pick the automatic ticket to Gabon 2017..

And ahead of the AFCON qualifier, three Nigerian exports to the English Premier League will be involved in a battle of sorts as Watford, parading Ighalo clashes with Ideye and Anichebe of West Brom.

Ighalo had a dream start in the Premier League last weekend when he scored for the Hornets in their exciting 2-2 draw with Everton at Goodison Park.

Ighalo’s goal is amongst the contenders for the opening day of the EPL, second perhaps only to Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho long range strike that sunk Stoke City o Suday.

Even though he was a second half substitute in the game against Everton, Ighalo’s goal has somehow opened the pathway for him to get a starting shirt nod fro coach Quique Flores against West Brom, who on their part, would be attempting to get over the 3-0 hammering they got from Manchester City on Monday.

Despite being unused substitutes against City, the duo of Ideye and Anichebe will hope that they bad fortune that befell the Baggies will force Coach Tony Pulis to rejig the starting team and throw them into the mix against Watford.

Victor Anichebe

Reflecting on the Everton game, Ighalo said “as a striker I want to score goals, so today will give me confidence to fight on and score more. I saw John Stones come towards me so I had to cut in, and I saw another defender coming in, so I knew if I took the shot then it would be blocked. I was lucky I did what I did, and I was happy to see the goal go in.

“We could have come away with the three points, but we were unlucky and we must learn that when we are playing in the Premier League you have to fight to the end. I’m happy with the performance of the team, it will give us more confidence going forward to help us do well.”

Despite an impressive opening day display, Ighalo was keen to state that there’s room for improvement in the side, if they are to compete consistently in the Premier League.

“It is encouraging because you could see that we fought from the first minute to the last, especially playing against a good time like Everton, and a point we can be happy with. We just have to learn from this, and try not to concede late on next time, but we really worked hard.”