Goal king Utaka outshines big-name recruits

The current Chinese Super League season has been highlighted by the quantity of imported players, with no fewer than 80 foreigners plying their trade amongst the nation’s 16 top-flight clubs. Few of them, however, have proved more successful than Nigerian forward Peter Utaka, who has taken no time in making every post a winner in his adopted country.

Since joining newly-promoted Dalian Aerbin at the start of this year, Utaka has racked up 16 goals in 23 appearances which leaves him second in the league's goalscoring chart. Indeed, Utaka has adapted so successfully, that he plans to move his mother to China and also encourage older brother, John, who is currently playing with Montpellier, to join Dalian next season.

"Everything here is enjoyable in China," he told FIFA.com in a recent exclusive interview. "I feel comfortable about the life here and I appreciate the help from everyone around me - my coach, team-mates, supporters etc. I hope my mum will come here to join me next season. As for John, we’ve chatted much about the Chinese league via phone and so it is also possible for him to move here."

The notion of the Utaka siblings forming one of C-League's most formidable attacking line-ups with Aerbin resonates strongly with the younger Utaka. "That would be fantastic," he says. "It is not about the family reunion but goalscoring work. John is a good player and he can prove that with any team."

Like most of the kids in football-mad Nigeria, the two brothers started playing football in the streets of Enugu, a city in the nation’s south-east. “John is two years older than me so he started a bit earlier," he recalled. "Even then he showed he is very talented in the game but when I started playing I quickly caught up with him."

The two brothers made a smooth transition to Europe, where they soon made a name for themselves. While John spent four seasons with Portsmouth before moving to France’s Ligue 1 last year, Peter made waves in the Danish league with OB Odense, managing an impressive return of 52 goals in 108 appearances.

His goalscoring form didn't go unnoticed by Aerbin's Serbian coach Aleksandar Stanojevic, who secured his move to Dalian. Shouldering the goalscoring responsibility for his ambitious new side, though, provided some early difficulties and Utaka failed to find the back of the net in his first six matches.

The level of competition in the C-League was well beyond my expectations and the players here are of good quality.

"The opening games were hard," said Utaka. "To be honest the level of competition in the C-League was well beyond my expectations and the players here are of good quality. The attack is more pacy here and the defence tough. I had to work hard in both training and playing as I tried to adapt to the style quickly."

The breakthrough finally came when he, firstly earned a penalty, before striking a late equaliser as Aerbin came from two goals down to draw with Guizhou Renhe. From there, the Nigerian has never looked back, adding 15 goals to his tally, including a run of scoring in 10 consecutive fixtures to establish a new C-League record. Notably, he famously set up newly-signed Seydou Keita for his maiden goal, before scoring the match-winner as his side edged Guizhou 2-1 in the return in August.

Life returns to Abuja National Stadium January

The pitch of Abuja National Stadium will be back in top shape by January, according to the Nigeria sports minister Bolaji Abdulahi.

The minister, who paid an unscheduled visit to the National Stadium on Monday, said work will start soon on the pitch which is in state of deplorable condition.

"I am not happy with the condition of the pitch and I am assuring Nigerians that it will soon be fixed to meet world standards. In two weeks time, work will start here," promised Abdullahi.

The pitch is now expected to be ready to host matches again from January.

The deplorable state of the pitch forced the Eagles to shift to Calabar their home qualifying matches for the 2014 World Cup and 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.

It is therefore likely that the Eagles World Cup qualifier at home against Kenya in March will be played on this Abuja Stadium pitch.

Di Matteo makes Moses confession

Chelsea boss Roberto Di Matteo is delighted with the arrival of former Wigan Athletic winger Victor Moses.

Moses has impressed during his brief time at Stamford Bridge with two excellent substitute performances, and he is now expected to go in to the Blues' starting line-up for tonight's Capital One Cup clash against Wolves.

"He's young and he'll still improve and develop but he's an exciting player that I tried very hard to sign, not just this year but previously as well, years ago," said Di Matteo.

"He's a player I like very much and he will have a big influence in our season. He's strong at holding the ball, his dribbling ability is very good, he can go past defenders, which not many can, and he's got the pace as well.

"He's very good at making runs in behind, he's a very good player. It's good that nobody else noticed."

Unbelievable but Mikel Obi vows to score

Chelsea star John Mikel Obi has said he believes he will soon score his first goal in the English Premier League after six years.

  

He came close to breaking his duck against Stoke City on Saturday, but his goal-bound effort was blocked, meaning he has now gone 165 EPL games for ‘The Blues’ without a goal.

  

Mikel said he is so optimistic that if given the role he played on Saturday more often, he will score goals this season.

  

“My lack of goals in EPL does not worry me so much, because I have been doing my job well  though I wanted to get goals no matter how few but my positions have denied me that, but my role on Saturday against Stoke City was different as I joined the attack often and almost scored,” he said.

  

“I am sure I will get goals this season if I continue to get such a role. It is a matter of time before I will break the jinx.

  

“I thought the ball had crossed the goal line on Saturday only for the Stoke defender to throw himself at the shot to block it. I will do more to score this season.”

  

On the entire game, Mikel said Stoke had a game plan which almost worked, but he was happy Chelsea have maintained their unbeaten run in EPL this term.

  

He said, “It was a tough game, Stoke came with a plan to frustrate all our attacks and see if they could break on counter, and it almost worked for them, but our determination made us won the game. It is a good result for us at least we remain on top. We will get better game after game,” he assured.

Martins sets Levante target

Obafemi Martin is set to write his name in Levante folklore by scoring more goals than last season’s highest scorer, Arouna Kone. The match-winner in the 2 -1 victory over  Real Sociedad on Sunday says he wants to outperform the Ivorien forward.

"I want to score as many goals as possible so that the memory of Kone is banished.”

In the first practice I saw that the club Levante is not as small as some think and I'm very happy to be here,'' Martins was quoted as saying by superdeporte.es.

The former Inter Milan star said that he was very happy for his debut goal and the three points.

27 - year -old Martins is the 11th Levante player to score on his debut in the Spanish championship.