Odion Ighalo
Manchester United forward Odion Ighalo has said he took a pay cut in order to facilitate his deadline day transfer to Old Trafford from Shanghai Shenhua.
United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had been in the market for a forward following an injury to Marcus Rashford and Nigeria international Ighalo completed a shock loan move to United in the final hours of the transfer window.
And Ighalo, who is a boyhood United fan, said he was so keen to make the deal happen with so little time left in the January window, he opted to take less money.
My agent called me the day before and said Man United,” Ighalo told United’s website. “I would love to go.
“A few other clubs had shown interest, I said please, just pick United, if it’s going to be possible. At 11 p.m. in Shanghai, my agent called me [to say] that United want to do the deal, so I woke up that night and started looking for a translator to go to the directors’ room and hit his door and all that.
” … I didn’t sleep throughout that night because it was going to end at 7 a.m., Shanghai time, and the transfer [window] is going to close there.
“I don’t care how much is the pay-cut, I know that, make it happen. So the director and everybody didn’t know what to say anymore, because I had already made up my mind, so my agent started putting it in order, and, at 5 a.m., we finished.”