- Ex-Super Eagles striker Odion Ighalo trained with is Manchester United teammates for the first time, after he was away from the team due to precautionary measures over Coronavirus.
Ex-Super Eagles striker Odion Ighalo trained with is Manchester United teammates for the first time, after he was away from the team due to precautionary measures over Coronavirus.
Ighalo, who joined United from Shanghai Shenhua, was quarantined before he was allowed to train with his new teammates.
This ensured he missed United’s warm-weather training camp in Spain over fears that border restrictions amid the coronavirus may not allow the former Nigerian international back into the UK should he leave.
Ighalo has been training with Manchester-based performance coach Wayne Richardson at the GB Taekwondo Centre in Manchester.
But he arrived at Carrington on Sunday morning, chauffeured in, to train with his new teammates for the first time.
The United squad only returned to Manchester on Friday and had a rest day on Saturday, before a final training session on Sunday ahead of facing Chelsea in the Premier League on Monday night.
“I never said he was going to be ready to play on Monday,” Solskjaer said of Ighalo at his pre-match press conference.
“He’ll be involved with us and he’ll travel down with us. Now he’s out of that two-week period – a precaution we made. He’ll travel with us and let’s see if he’s involved or not.
“We’ve kept in touch with him and, of course, we’ve done our own programme, he’s done his. And it was always going to be a case of him having to integrate to the group, anyway, having been out in China, and he needs to get used to the players and the team and up to speed as quick as he can.
“But he’s been working really hard, I think he’s probably pinching himself at times, because he’s now at his favourite club at the age of 30. But he’s earned that one and hopefully he’ll impress us so we can see him play.
“(With) the injury Marcus Rashford, it has to be said, we needed another forward and when we got the chance to get Odion on a loan that was, for us, a goalscorer, top scorer (at the) Africa Cup of Nations last year. We thought, yeah, he can help the club. He’s a very professional player, a good lad and will give something to the group.”
