Premier League strugglers Spurs could follow Jose Mourinho with Luis Campos.
Powerful and pacey with a leap like a salmon and the speed of a springbok, there’s more than a touch of Didier Drogba about Victor Osimhen.
“I’m sure he’s going to be a phenomenon,” the Nigerian’s former Charleroi teammate Nicolas Penneteau told Voix du Nord at the start of the season. “I’d compare him to Didier Drogba. He has the same profile. He can do everything and he’s phenomenally powerful.”
But while Drogba waited until his mid-20s before he exploded onto the scene in the French top flight with Marseille, 20-year-old Osimhen is a little further ahead of schedule.
With nine goals to his name already since signing for Lille in the summer, the jet-heeled striker looks well placed to follow in the footsteps of Eden Hazard and Nicolas Pepe by becoming a superstar at the Stade Geoffroy Guichard.
And Lille, as they so often do, have their esteemed sporting director Luis Campos to thank for unearthing another diamond in the rough.
“I called (the Lille CEO) every night saying, ‘Please give me this player, he is amazing. In two years he will be one of the best in Europe’,” Campos says, in quotes reported by Sky, while reminiscing about the moment when he first saw Osimhen in action.
So with Campos tipped to follow Jose Mourinho to Tottenham and form a new-look dream team in North London, via ESPN, it would be little surprise to see Osimhen become the first signing of an exciting new era at Spurs with the January transfer window looming large. The one-time Wolfsburg kid already told Soccernet that he is welcoming interest from across the channel.
And if Osimhen really is the ‘new Drogba’, it goes without saying that he’d be a number nine almost tailor-made for Mourinho. After all, the two-time Champions League winner didn’t do too badly with the original version during his legendary first spell at Chelsea.
And with Harry Kane still short of real competition in attack, Osimhen could be the signing Tottenham have been crying out for for years.
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