Iwobi confident of surpassing Kolo Toure's Premier League African appearance record

SUPER Eagles playmaker Alex Iwobi is optimistic about becoming the most capped African player in the English Premier League before the end of the current season after overtaking Mo Salah over the weekend and becoming number two on the list.

Over the weekend, Iwobi, 30, became the African player with the second-most Premier League appearances moving ahead of  Salah, with whom he had previously shared the position. Iwobi has made 329 Premier League appearances for Arsenal, Everton and his current club Fulham and is now only trailing former Arsenal legend Kolo Toure who has 353 appearances.

Iwobi, a Hale End Academy product, made 100 appearances for Arsenal, 123 for Everton and now has 106 for Fulham. With 29 league games left before the end of the season, Iwobi is confident of surpassing Toure's record, although he has downplayed the significance of  the milestone, insisting that he remains focused on achieving more in his career.

"It's hard for me to cherish the memories. I'd like to keep on looking ahead so it's a nice little stat to have but I'm trying to break the record. I think Kolo Toure is up there so I'll keep my eyes going forward and see if I can break that," Iwobi added.

After a poor start to the season, Fulham have secured three consecutive good results in the Premier League, winning back-to-back matches against Hull City and Coventry City, before forcing Aston Villa to a 1-1 draw in their last outing.  Iwobi is delighted with Fulham’s recent performances but admits that the team is working on becoming more clinical in front of goal.

Iwobi added: "We are always doing finishing. Hopefully, that luck will come and we will start scoring more goals. If you keep on working hard, luck will eventually go your way, and we feel that recently this season we have been performing really well with most of our games.

"It is only a matter of time luck comes our way, we just have to keep this momentum going." Since making his Premier League debut against Swansea City on October 31, 2015, Iwobi has recorded 36 goals and 41 assists in the league.