Premier League giants Liverpool and Arsenal reportedly have their sights set on Villarreal’s La Liga star Samu Chukwueze.
Not since the heady days of Yakubu, Kanu and Obafemi Martins have Nigeria boasted an attack with such dazzling potential.
These days, the likes of Emmanuel Dennis, Alex Iwobi, Moses Simon, Kelechi Iheanacho, Victor Osimhen and Cyriel Dessers, the Eredivisie’s current top scorer, are making the ‘Super Eagles’ look a little more, well, super.
The jewel in the crown, however, is just getting started on the international stage.
When discussing 20-year-old Samu Chukwueze, it is impossible not to cast your mind back to April 2018 when Villarreal and Barcelona played out an eight-goal thriller on the Castellon Coast. In a real coming of age performance, a hitherto little-known winger shot to fame with a striking display, ripping Barca’s title-winning defence apart again and again.
Cutting inside from the right wing in a manner reminiscent to a young Arjen Robben or Lionel Messi, Chukwueze catapulted himself into the limelight in the space of 90 dazzling minutes.
His long-term agent, however, always felt that a display like this was coming sooner rather than later.
“I’m not surprised by what Sammy is doing at Villarreal, he has the potential to be as good as Lionel Messi or Arjen Robben,” Victor Apugo told ExtraSportNigeria in March 2019.
“Everybody knows that Chukwueze is the brightest talent to come out of Nigeria since a very long time, probably since Mikel came to the limelight in 2005. We’re yet to even see his best because I know him very well and what he is capable of.”
According to France Football, Liverpool are interested in adding the £55 million-rated Chukwueze to Jurgen Klopp’s star-studded squad, having failed with a £30 million January bid. Arsenal are interested too, at least that is what the youngster’s Villarreal team-mate Santi Cazorla has told Marca.
A few more displays befitting of Robben or Messi and Chukwueze’s already eye-watering price-tag might just grow that little bit more.
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