Victor Osimhen: An insatiable Goal  Poacher

Despite spending four weeks on the sidelines due to injury, Victor Osimhen still sits atop the Serie A goalscorer’s chart with seven league goals. The Super Eagles striker only last weekend joined the elite class like George Opong Weah as only five African players to have scored Serie A hat-tricks 

Super Eagles striker, Victor Osimhen made several entries into the record books following his scintillating display for the Neapolitans as he continued his brilliant scoring form last Saturday when he smashed a stunning hat-trick in Napoli’s 4-0 demolition of Sassuolo in the Serie A at the Diego Maradona Stadium.

It was Osimhen’s first three-goal haul at the club level, with the Nigerian failing to reach that height when playing for Wolfsburg, Sporting Charleroi, and LOSC Lille.

The goals also took Osimhen’s tally in the Italian Serie A to seven, elevating the Napoli man to the top of the league’s goalscorer chart.

Even more impressively, Osimhen has now scored 31 goals in Serie A, making him the joint-most prolific Nigerian star in the history of the Italian top flight.

It has also emerged that Osimhen’s weekend feat makes him the fifth African to net a Serie A hat-trick after Liberia’s George Weah, Cameroon’s Patrick Mboma, Egypt’s Mohamed Salah, and Senegal’s Keita Balde.

Weah, the first African to score a hat-trick in Italy’s top flight, grabbed it for AC Milan in a 3-0 win over Atalanta in 1998.

A year later, former Cameroon international Mboma replicated the feat for Cagliari in a 5-1 thrashing of Empoli.

While wearing the colours of Roma, Liverpool’s Salah scored all the goals as AS Roma ran out 3-0 winners over Bologna in 2016.

Senegal’s Balde made the cut when he powered Lazio to a 6-2 win over Palermo in 2017.

After joining the elite group of Africa’s Serie A hat-trick kings, Osimhen is both delighted and thirsty for more such feats.

“That was my first professional hat-trick so I’m really excited about it,” Osimhen told BBC Sport Africa.

“It’s been a great return after a few challenges at the start of the season and hopefully I can continue this form.

“As a striker, you always want to help your team so I want to stay hungry for more.”

Osimhen has scored six goals in his past four outings across all competitions since his return from a month-long injury layoff.

The 23-year-old is only behind the trio Erling Haaland, Robert Lewandowski and Kylian Mbappe.

Meanwhile, Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti has revealed his admiration for  Osimhen’s first goal in the 4-0 thrashing of Sassuolo.

For the first time since turning a professional, Osimhen netted his first club hat-trick in a man-of-the-match performance.

Osimhen’s first of the afternoon, though, was jaw-dropping.

The Super Eagles striker showed good athleticism to bring a high cross under control with his first touch before reacting quickly to poke the ball into the net with his second touch.

The goal not only pleased Spalletti but it also showed the Italian manager that Osimhen possesses qualities alien to a regular striker.

“It seems to me that he is making progress, he has a lot of margins because his possibilities and his flashes are not accessible to a normal player,” Spalletti told the media after the match.

“On the goal, he hooked a ball in the area and put the ball into the goal before the opponent intervened. He was fast and accurate. Then today he didn’t take off his shirt, because he would have wanted to take it off.

It therefore came as no surprise that the Napoli striker has been selected for Europe’s Top Five Leagues Team of the Week.

With a rating of 9.7, Osimhen is the highest rated player in the Team of the Week for Europe’s Top Five Leagues.

Since his return from injury, the 23-year-old has scored in five consecutive games against Ajax, Bologna, Roma, and Sassuolo.

Osimhen’s hat-trick is the first by a Nigerian striker in the Italian Serie A.

That is no mean feat, considering that Italy’s top flight has at different times been home to some of Nigeria’s finest attackers. That list includes former Inter Milan heroes Kanu Nwankwo, Obafemi Martins and Victor Moses, ex-Lazio man Ayodele Makinwa, and Simy Nwankwo.

Just as importantly, Osimhen, with his latest goal haul, has risen to become Nigeria’s most prolific goalscorer in Serie A history. With 31 goals, he now shares that title with former Crotone goal-king Simy.

It has taken Osimhen 59 matches to reach that milestone when Simy needed nearly twice that (101) to get his.

Last weekend truly belonged to Osimhen, who further maintained his excellent start to the season with a one-man masterclass against Sassuolo.

The victory was Napoli’s 13th consecutive win in all competitions and takes them up to 32 points after 12 matches, five ahead of second-placed Atalanta. Osimhen was the star performer, opening the scoring in the fourth minute when he touched home at the back post.

A quarter of an hour later, the Nigeria frontman had doubled the hosts’ advantage with a close-range first-time effort, demonstrating again his intelligent movement off the ball and sharpened finishing instincts in the box.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who had provided the assist for both of Osimhen’s goals, added a third for Napoli in the first half, before the Nigerian rounded off the win with a delightful dinked goal 13 minutes from time.

Osimhen has now had a hand in six goals in his last four matches after coming back from a month out with a thigh injury in mid-October, and the player will be ruing the pause in club competition for the World Cup later this month.

There’s an utter relentlessness about this Napoli team, and their current winning streak has long since surpassed the previous club record of 11 consecutive victories – established by Diego Maradona’s Scudetto-winning side 35 years ago.

In Osimhen, they boast a player who may be capable of taking them to another title, although Napoli should surely be bracing themselves for increased transfer speculation around the player’s future in January — both Chelsea and Manchester United continue to be linked.

Next up for Osimhen’s Napoli are their nearest challengers Atalanta, who are enjoying the services of a Nigerian hotshot of their own this season in the form of Ademola Lookman.

The livewire is enjoying a new lease of life after signing from RasenBallsport Leipzig during the offseason, and added Atalanta’s second as they defeated Empoli away in Sunday’s early kick-off.

The forward has scored five goals in his first 12 Italian top flight outings so far.

However, it was not an enjoyable night for Osimhen in Tuesday’s night Champions League encounter against Liverpool at Anfield.

The striker coming fresh off a brilliant performance, where he netted a hat-trick could not replicate that form, all through his 88th minutes on the pitch as the Nigerian was marked out by the duo of  Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk.

The 23-year-old has only three appearances in the Champions League and a goal so far this season.