​Victor Moses: ​ Loan Spell to Landmark

After a superlative performance for Wigan Athletic during the 2011/12 season, the coaching crew of Chelsea signed Victor Moses. He was loaned to rivals, Liverpool, in September 2013, due to a glut of stars. He was thereafter shipped to Stoke City and West Ham the following seasons. But with the arrival of Antonio Conte at Stamford Bridge after the sack of Jose Mourinho, Moses found a new lease of life, by becoming a regular in Chelsea. And last week against Huddersfield, he made a landmark 200 Premier League appearances, reports Kunle Adewale

Victor Moses made his 200th appearance in the English Premier League on Tuesday night when he played for Chelsea against Huddersfield Town at the Kirklees Stadium, thus joining an illustrious Nigerian company that includes Shola Ameobi (298 games), Nwankwo Kanu (273 games), Yakubu Aiyegbeni (252 games), John Obi Mikel (249), Joseph Yobo (228) and Victor Anichebe (204).
The 26-year-old has 66 appearances to his name for Chelsea, 74 Wigan Athletic, 21 West Ham, and he featured 19 times each while on loan at Liverpool and Stoke City.

Before the start of this season, Moses had not played a league game for Chelsea for more than three years, but now he has a key role in the 3-4-3 system that took them to the top of the Premier League. His current situation is a huge turnaround for a player who, partly because of injury, started only 38 league games in the past three seasons, completing 90 minutes just 12 times.
He has a new lease of life because Blues manager, Antonio Conte has given him a chance at right wing-back. It is a new position for the Nigeria international, but it suits his strength.
Conte remarked: “I played as a wing-back a lot during my career, particularly when I was younger in the mid-to-late 1990s when that system was least popular in the Premier League. I used to enjoy it because, like Moses, it suited my game. Like him, I was more of an attacker than a defender and wing-backs have the freedom to get forward when they want.

“You have to be disciplined defensively and decide when to join the attack or hold back, but you have the freedom of the touchline and the ability to impose yourself on the game far more than you can as a normal winger. By timing your runs, you can come from deep with a head of steam and burst into great positions – the sort of thing that Moses was doing against Boro when he used his power and pace to great effect.”
It helps Moses that he has got a really stable set-up behind him thanks to N’Golo Kante and Nemanja Matic (before leaving for Manchester United). Moses knows at least one of them will drop in too, so Chelsea’s three-man defence is rarely left without cover even if he does not get back. So, he can really bomb forward as much as he likes.
Moses is fast and fit and another reason he is good at getting back is that he has got his manager on the sidelines screaming at him. He will not mind getting instructions like that because he is learning the position as he goes. Moses is doing a very good job already, but he will definitely get better the longer he plays in that role.

He admitted that he always hoped to play regularly for a big club like the Blues, but struggled to make any impact on the first team at Stamford Bridge until Antonio Conte arrived last summer, whose 3-4-3 formation has brought the best out of the 26-year-old.
“I’ve always wanted to play for this big club, it’s one of the best clubs in the world at the moment and I’m enjoying every single minute. I just want to keep on working hard and helping my team-mates out,” he told Chelsea’s official website.
On why he has not been able to pin a shirt at Chelsea before the arrival of Conte, former Nigeria international Paul Okoku told THISDAY that, Moses was reaping the fruits of hard work and effort at improving his game while on loan.
“It was not that Conte just woke up and decided to be playing Moses. He had definitely seen him play during his loan spell and knew he suits his style of play. Moreover, Moses too had put in so much effort to improve him game and that is what he is enjoying today,” Okoku said.

Pates, a sports teacher who helped mould Moses’ raw talent at Whitgift School in Croydon, says it was wonderful to see his former protégé playing so superbly as Chelsea top the Premier League.
Pates said: “He’s having a fantastic season playing really well and it really suits him. I would never in a million years have said he would be a wing-back. You just didn’t think that was the role he would have taken up and enjoyed. But he has developed, he’s proved a lot of people wrong and it looks like he absolutely loves it to me.”

In spite of his impressive performance so far with Chelsea, Moses lost the BBC African Player of the Year to Egypt and Liverpool striker, Mohamed Salah and on Monday missed out of the last-three players shortlisted for the African Footballer of the Year Award.