Watford manager Walter Mazzarri says his club were happy to see Odion Ighalo turn down a move to China last week — even if it meant missing out on a £38million windfall.
Striker Ighalo has insisted he has ‘unfinished business’ in English football and that the big money on offer from Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Shanghai SIPG did not move him to leave Vicarage Road.
The feeling, on Mazzarri’s part at least, is mutual. He brought in 11 new players this summer to transform Watford’s squad into his image — but Ighalo remains a key part of that.
The Nigerian centre forward, 27, hit 17 goals last season but has only notched once in the opening weeks of the current campaign against Gillingham in the EFL Cup.