Nigeria Content Online

Birmingham
City manager, Alex McLeish, is desperate to have Obafemi Martins in his
starting line-up for this weekend’s game against West Ham United.

McLeish brought
Martins back to the English Premier League on loan from Russia’s Rubin
Kazan ahead of Monday’s transfer deadline but the striker was unable to
feature in Wednesday’s 2-2 draw against Manchester City as he was stuck
in Lagos. The former Newcastle United and Inter Milan striker was
reportedly waiting for officials of the British High Commission in the
former Nigerian capital city to process his visa to the United Kingdom,
and as a result missed the game at Saint Andrew’s. But the Birmingham
boss is now hoping that everything will be sorted before the Blues
travel to Upton Park to face West Ham in a relegation battle on Sunday.
And, he admitted, in a report on the Birmingham Mail, that Martins
would be in the squad even if he arrived in England as late as Saturday
night.

Wanted badly

“We want him back
as soon as possible,” he said. “Our hands are tied by the red tape.
People in Nigeria hopefully will push the wee man through. He’s a
popular guy and I’m told the embassy would be responsive to allowing
Oba to get back in this country as soon as possible.”

West Ham, after
what appeared to be an eternity, climbed off the foot of the Premier
League table when they defeated Blackpool 3-1 with two of the goals
coming from Martins’ Nigerian team-mate, Obinna Nsofor. So a win for
the Hammers this weekend will see them leapfrog Birmingham on the table.

But the Blues would be confident at Upton Park as not only did they
stun the Hammers in the Carling Cup semi final, but the display against
Manchester City on Wednesday was uplifting. “It would have been galling
to have lost that one after the magnificent second-half performance,”
said McLeish. “But, City were dangerous, they will score goals, they
have got the quality there. By and large we matched them. We were
sloppy in the first-half but I can’t fault the players for the
fantastic effort they gave – and there was a lot of quality from us as
well, we played some good football. City move it well, they have great
footballers in Silva, Tevez, Dzeko will bring a lot to them when he
gets top fit, no doubt about it. So we knew we were playing against top
quality players. But we gave it a right go ourselves – and we’ve got
to. We’re at home at St Andrew’s, we have the crowd behind us, the
power of the troops last week against West Ham in the Carling Cup
semi-final was immense and, again, it unnerves the opposition. In the
second-half we were more in their faces, we were excellent.”