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New boy Odion Ighalo will be in the Manchester United squad to face Chelsea, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has confirmed while speaking to the club website. The Nigerian joined the Red Devils on loan for the rest of the season from the Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua on deadline day last month. Ighalo is a self-professed United fan and has revealed that he even took a pay-cut to join the club of his dreams.
However, the Nigerian has not travelled with the United squad to Marbella in Spain for warm-weather training, amid fears that stringent border screening activities would hinder his re-entry in the UK. That means that Ighalo is yet to get acquainted with his new teammates since joining the Red Devils.
As such, there have been doubts about whether he would be involved in United’s first game after the winter break, away to Chelsea. However, the United manager seems to have squashed any such worries.
United want to integrate Ighalo into the team as soon as possible
Solskjaer had previously confirmed that the decision to leave Ighalo in Manchester while the rest of the team travelled to Marbella was a precautionary measure. The Norwegian spoke to the club website again from Spain and revealed that even though the Nigerian was not involved in the warm weather training camp, he would travel with the squad to the Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea.
Yeah, he is going to travel with us [to Chelsea]
The Red Devils could only manage a stale 0-0 draw against Wolverhampton Wanderers before the winter break, at Old Trafford and Solskjaer will be hoping that Ighalo can provide a different option at the front for his team. The Nigerian has played in the Premier League before, for Watford and that experience could come in handy for him. Solskjaer mentioned that the club would assess Ighalo’s fitness, but was hopeful that the Nigerian will be ready for action.
We will just see his fitness work this week and I think we will get him sharp.
The Norwegian also added that United were looking to integrate Ighalo into the team as soon as possible and revealed that the player himself was desperate to play for the Red Devils.
We want to integrate him as quickly as we can because, of course, he is desperate to play for us.
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