Nigeria’s John Obi Mikel, Yakubu Aiyegbeni and Nwankwo Kanu have been included in the English Premier League top 10 most influential African players of all time.
The players were sorted out using their exclusive influence score, which awards points for appearances, match wins and Premier League titles, while deducting points for match losses.
At the end of it all, Kolo Toure got crowned as the most influential African player in Premier League history!
With a total influence score of 925 points, he shockingly beat out Chelsea legends Didier Drogba on 760 points and John Obi Mikel on 665 points.
The top 10 most influential African players in the Premier League of all time are:
1) Kolo Toure – Arsenal, Liverpool – Ivory Coast – 925 points
2) Didier Drogba – Chelsea – Ivory Coast – 700 points
3) John Obi Mikel – Chelsea – Nigeria – 665 points
4) Yaya Toure – Man City – Ivory Coast – 636 points
5) Emmanuel Adebayor – Arsenal,Man City, Tottenham – Togo – 557 points
6) Nwankwo Kanu – Arsenal – Nigeria – 537 points
7) Michael Essien – Chelsea – Ghana – 495 points
8.) Yakubu Aiyegbeni – Everton – Nigeria – 381 points
9) Victor Wanyama – Tottenham – Kenya – 318 points
10) Sadio Mane – Southampton, Liverpool – Senegal – 269 points
Looking at the nationalities of the most successful players reveals that Nigeria is the biggest supplier of Premier League talent, with 6 players in the Top 24 shortlist.
Cote d’Ivoire comes in second place with 5 players, while Ghana and Senegal are tied in the third place with 3 player representatives each.
In terms of which nation has scored the most goals though, Cote d’Ivoire narrowly beats Nigeria into first place, with 194 goals to Nigeria’s 184 goals.
Togo reaches third place with 97 goals solely thanks to the efforts of Emmanuel Adebayor.
The top 5 “Most goals scored” is as follows:
1) Ivory Coast – 194 goals – Didier Drogba (104 goals)
2) Nigeria – 184 goals – Yakubu Aiyegbeni (95 goals)
3) Togo – 97 goals – Emmanuel Adebayor (97 goals)
4) Ghana – 51 goals – Tony Yeboah (24 goals)
5) Senegal – 45 goals – Sadio Mane ( 43 goals)
To make the shortlist, players had to be of clear African heritage and have a minimum of 30 club appearances.
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