This man guarantees goals. He is one of the best strikers in the world. And some of the biggest clubs in the Premier League desperately need a centre-forward. It is a transfer equation that should have a very obvious solution. Buy Victor Osimhen.
Instead, Chelsea have already moved to bring in Liam Delap after an impressive season with Ipswich. Viktor Gyokeres, Benjamin Sesko and Hugo Ekitike are all names linked with a move to England as Premier League teams seek to reinforce this key position.
Amid all the speculation, Osimhen lurks in the background with talk of a move to Saudi Arabia or perhaps an extension to his loan stay at Galatasaray. With only one year left on his contract at Napoli, a return to the Serie A champions has already been ruled out.
He remains the same formidable figure who fired Napoli to their first title since the days of Diego Maradona. Serie A’s player of the year for 2023, he finished eighth in that year’s Ballon d’Or vote. This past season, his 37 goals took Galatasaray to a domestic double.
It feels faintly absurd that a player who, at 26, is ostensibly in his prime might be viewed as too old to throw money at, but the days of Chelsea breaking the British transfer record to bring in Andriy Shevchenko just short of his 30th birthday are now long gone.
A deal would be complicated and expensive because of interest from the Middle East. The younger options are the cheaper options. They offer resale value too. None of which means that even the buyers think these alternatives will score more than Nigeria’s No 9.
Acacio Santos worked with Osimhen as assistant to Jose Peseiro with the Super Eagles. He is clear in his view. “I respect Galatasaray, of course,” Santos tells Sky Sports. “But Victor deserves to be in the Premier League, where the light would be shining on him.”
The Portuguese coach saw up close what makes him so special, why he was the sort of character capable of helping carry Napoli to that historic title. “Victor is calm before training, in his own world. But when the session starts, he wants to win everything.”
Santos has stories of Osimhen taking that too far. “It was incredible to watch – and as the assistant coach, I was normally the guy with the whistle,” he says. “His team-mates would be saying, ‘Victor, it’s a training exercise.’ He would say, ‘No, we have to win.'”
He describes a player who is “very competitive, very demanding of his colleagues” – pointing out that “this is just his mentality” – but Santos saw the other side to Osimhen. The qualities that ensure that more often than not he was able to take players with him.
“Victor is a leader through his behaviour, through his work, through his example.”
“One day before the game, Vitor had a bit of a fight with Emmanuel Dennis in a seven-against-seven exercise. This player was relaxing a little bit, a bit chilled. This was normal because there was a game the next day. But Victor wanted more. He was so demanding.
“We were a little bit surprised by his attitude. It was good. We liked it. But we thought he should calm down, maybe. The next day, he scored four goals.” They came in what was a record-breaking 10-0 victory over Sao Tome and Principe in the summer of 2023.
“After scoring his four goals, suddenly we had a penalty. Everybody expected Victor to grab the ball for the fifth. The poker. But no, Victor gave the ball to Dennis, the team-mate he had fought with the day before who had never scored for the national team.
“This is an example that tells you a lot about Victor Osimhen. Instead of having five goals, he preferred to give his team-mate his first goal. Others like to talk in the dressing room. Victor is a leader through his behaviour, through his work, through his example.”
Victor Osimhen did his work in the penalty box for Galatasaray in the Europa League
His self-belief is extraordinary. Santos regards this as one of the factors that separates the very best strikers from the rest, that ability to shrug off the miss and go in search of the next opportunity regardless. There is a phrase for it. “Mental stamina,” he calls it.
“It is the time that you waste after making a mistake. If your mental stamina is not strong, that is not good because you are going to waste a lot of time as a victim of your own mistake. If the time you waste is short then you have strong mental stamina.
“Victor has this strength. He does not care if he makes a mistake. He wants to fight again. This is a huge thing because it affects your biology too. Your body will start telling you, ‘Okay, I have to go and fight again, I have to do more, I cannot waste any time.'”
The irony, of course, is that wasting time is exactly how Osimhen’s critics – even some of his biggest fans – might see his career choices to date. Tales of a player with exceptional drive do not necessarily chime easily with the circuitous path he has embarked upon.
For all the fact that Santos describes a player who is pretty much the complete centre-forward – “he is also very fast and very strong physically” – even a long-time admirer like his former coach can appreciate that Osimhen’s career now stands at the crossroads.
Galatasaray are a famous club but the Turkish Super Lig ranks between the leagues of Czechia and Norway in the UEFA club coefficients. He can plunder in these lesser leagues, winning trophies and adulation. Or test himself in the toughest competitions.
“It shows his professionalism in winning the championship in Turkey because it was not easy against Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. But I am quite sure that next season he has to go to another challenge, another championship. Victor needs this,” argues Santos.
“He needs to go to a more challenging environment, an environment that will give him what he needs.” And what is that? “He needs to create those moments of challenge for him to grow as a player. If he does that, he will give 120 per cent of what he has inside.”
This idea of growth is key. And the risk is that if Osimhen does not test himself soon then nobody – himself included – will ever truly realise just how good he could be. “Our message to him was unleash your power, unleash your power,” continues Santos.
By that, he means that he was constantly urging Osimhen to show more of what he could do. “Having confidence in your skills and believing it is possible to do even more are two different things. Cristiano Ronaldo is the perfect example of that,” he explains.
“He was always very confident in himself but he still needed Sir Alex Ferguson and then Mourinho to tell him that he could do more, that he could achieve more, that if he added these little ingredients then he could become even better than he thought possible.”
Still time for Osimhen
There is still time for Osimhen to prove it. “When Ronaldo was 30, people talked about him losing speed, losing agility, and then he went and scored more than 400 goals after turning 30. Biologically, we would have to see with Victor. But mentally he is top level.”
The next move could dictate his legacy and there is sympathy if he simply accepts the best financial offer that comes his way. “Victor is a humble guy from the streets of Lagos. Football was a possibility for him to be a bit more safe, let us put it this way.”
But the thought remains, what if the best striker on the market right now wanted a shot at the Premier League? “We have seen him in Italy and in Turkey. It would be harder in England, more intense,” adds Santos. “But I think everybody wants to see him there.”
Sky Sports to show 215 live PL games from next season
From next season, Sky Sports’ Premier League coverage will increase from 128 matches to at least 215 games exclusively live.
And 80 per cent of all televised Premier League games next season are on Sky Sports.
