Troy Deeney has revealed he nearly got into a massive bust-up with Odion Ighalo after the Nigerian refused to pass to him when the then Watford teammates took on Manchester United in 2016, reports metro.co.uk.
Ighalo, a massive Red Devils fan who has since moved to Old Trafford on loan from Shanghai Shenhua, was desperate to score at the Theatre of Dreams and by his own admission got tunnel vision whenever he had the goal in his sights that day.
Deeney was fuming with his strike partner, who even snubbed an open goal to have an effort himself, and says he had to drive home himself because he feared what might happen if he flew back with Ighalo and the rest of the team.
Speaking about Ighalo to The United Stand, Deeney said: ‘He trains well, he’s no hassle, genuinely I bet if you asked any person at United they’d say he’s no hassle. Absolutely sick, nice guy, genuinely he’s a Man United fan as well.
‘When we used to play, we played one year I ended up losing my head with him. He had like four, five shots and then there was one – I remember Fosu-Mensah was playing, I think he was making his debut – and basically [Ighalo] got put in behind and literally all he had to do was square it and I’m rolling it in from eight yards out.
‘And then he shot and it went wide. And he knew. You know when you know, because he looked at me and was like, “Ah”. Like, this is gonna get sticky.
‘And I remember just going in at half-time like, “If that’s the game we’re playing then take me off innit, because I thought we were here to win, I don’t really care who scores”.
‘I was in that much of a mood – because Mata scored and United won 1-0 – that I drove home. I didn’t get back on the plane.
‘I literally said to the manager: “You put me on this plane, there’s gonna be problems, so let me just calm down” and I drove from Manchester to Watford. And this was like a Tuesday or Wednesday night.
‘He definitely wanted to score. We spoke about it the day after, and I was just like, “Dude, we’ve just gotta win and if you’d let me score in that instance, Man United would have had to come out, you’d have had three of four other chances to score”.
‘But he built that game up so much. That was the game, he’s a Man United fan, a lot of his family in Africa are Man United fans. So that was the game, in the same way Villa is that game for me.
‘It was never going to get physical between me and him or anything like that, it was just genuinely a pure frustration, like “Dude, you’re better than that”. But he will be good for Man United and honestly, I can see them keeping him next year. I don’t see them getting rid of him.’
