American born Eduvie Ikoba who currently plays for Zalaegerszegi TE FC in Hungary is being linked with the Swans. We have done a bit of calling around before writing this piece as the link and connection to Swansea City seemed rather odd.

Ikoba is twenty five and it was only last season he made what would be described as an impact on the Nemzeti Bajnokság which is the top flight league in Hungary. You have to look at Ikoba’s scoring record to see he scored all his eleven goals last season in a ten match run between the end of August and start of November, all that is bar one goal in sixteen matches running up to the end of the campaign. Zalaegerszegi are the current Hungarian cup holders.

He stands at 6’3” and fits the profile that Michael Duff likes in his attacking players. Ikoba is primarily an out and out centre forward but his stats during those last sixteen games of last season should raise some concerns. Ikoba was selected in his sides squad last season playing twenty two times in the starting eleven. He was subbed six times. Zalaegerszegi went on a three match winning run towards the end of last season which basically saved them from relegation, only taking two points from the last four games.

At the end of last season Ikoba said, “I’m not sure what my future will hold yet, whether I’ll stay or whether I’ll go. But I’m just going to assume that I’ll be here at Zala…until I hear something different or a contract comes where maybe I can take another step in my career but who knows. I would definitely consider that option, but it’s not beneficial for a professional athlete to think too far ahead, so now I’m just taking it one game at a time. I’d like to finish the season in a good way, then in the summer I’m sure I’ll talk with the club and my agent about everything else.”

The issue is of course before the campaign that ended in May - Ikoba hadn’t surfaced as a decent striker at all. Ange Postecoglou at Celtic was linked as liking him as a player, but that proved to be more agent talk than anything else. And on that matter we should now visit that area of the professional game. Ikoba is a USA born Nigerian who comes under the wing of ‘Dynamic Lions Group Ltd’ a one man football agency newly incorporated as a UK business and run from a flat in North London. Jack Dos Santos is the man behind this business. He also has other irons in the fire regards athletics and entertainment. Pretty much a one man band turning his business ideas in to small companies. He has a variation on his name, he also uses the name Jack Dos Santos Trindade, and at times he uses Jack Tiago Dos Santos Trindade.

This is all perfectly reasonable we should point out. However clarity surely helps in these circumstances ?

Our research has shown he is not a full blown agent as such, he is more an intermediary. We spoke about what they are the other day. He is listed as such by the Football Association, but he is either unauthorised at this point in time or his authorisation has expired. That can change daily. That’s the latest information we have from the FA, but as we know any information is only as good as the person inputting it in to any computer system. The Celtic story would have most certainly come from this side of Ikoba’s management. When you look at the profile of the player overall there’s pretty much no way he would be on the radar of Celtic, especially as it was only really when he hit the age of twenty four that he started scoring goals.

This was a clear attempt to get Ikoba’s name in to the mind of the Scottish sports journalist.

It’s also unlikely that two clubs ( Swansea City and Hull City ) would be monitoring or interested in a unknown player at the same time, and more obvious that the press would know this and report it. This is an instance of agent driven speculation that could well work in the favour of the player as he is now being talked of in positive terms in the media. However, it’s only after you review the facts and make some inquiries it all falls in to place. That of course doesn’t make Ikoba a bad player more than it makes him a valid option for Swansea City.

The Acsom website ( A Celtic State Of Mind ) run by Paul John Dykes reported in May : Ikoba’s biggest strength is his physical presence and ability to hold the ball up with his back to the goal and bring others into play. However, he rarely looks comfortable with the ball at his feet and it is often by luck, rather than skill or design, that he is able to get the better of defenders in ground duals. Ikoba’s work rate also leaves a lot to be desired. In front of goals, Ikoba also gets mixed results. Undoubtedly a threat in the air, 5 of his 11 league goals have come from headers, however Ikoba has a disappointing shot-to-goal conversion rate of just 14.29%.

I think we are beginning to get the picture.

Most of these stories originate from agents and intermediaries who have contacts in the national press, in this instance we believe the Daily Mail are driving this story. If you want to read about how the Daily Mail actually coherse people to believe there is club interest in players read our article on how this is manipulated at times. It happened to a Swansea City player recently.

It’s quite an interesting standpoint —> ⚽️ How an agent can get a player noticed

In this case Simon Jones is a good place to start, he writes a lot of the Mail’s transfer confidential reports for their online market. And he is the one reporting this latest news. Drop in a Bundesliga club and don’t name them and the story is ready to be believed. Ikoba may well represent good value at half a million pounds as a recently improved late developer, and he may well come good. It could also be stated that the Swans ‘may well’ have knowledge of him. However, that will be as a result of Ikoba’s agent circulating him through various outlets in a wide ark punt to see where he can cast his net.

Well, to an extent it has worked, and today we hear and read of Championship clubs and their interest in Eduvie Ikoba, and it’s odds on not many people will have heard of him before yesterday morning. But more have now, which is exactly what his representative wanted.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

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