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Former Nigeria Striker Yakubu Retires Aged 35

By BBC
Sports News Former Nigeria Striker Yakubu Retires Aged 35
NOV 22, 2017 LISTEN

Former Nigeria international striker Yakubu Aiyegbeni has retired from football at the age of 35.

In almost a decade in English football, between January 2003 and June 2012, Yakubu scored 114 times in 293 league appearances, mostly in the top flight.

He averaged nearly a goal every other game at Portsmouth, Middlesbrough, Everton, Leicester and Blackburn before joining Chinese club Guangzhou.

He returned to England for short spells at Reading in 2015, then Coventry City.

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Yakubu played for Nigeria at the 2010 World Cup - but missed a sitter against South Korea.

Having left Turkish side Kayserispor in 2016, Yakubu was training with National League side Boreham Wood early last season before being offered a contract at Coventry in February until the end of the season by then Sky Blues boss Russell Slade.

But after three substitute appearances under Slade, he did not figure when Mark Robins returned to the club as manager and was released in April.

As well as his 21 goals in 57 games for his country, the ever popular Yakubu scored 95 Premier League goals, more than any other Nigerian and just nine fewer than Didier Drogba, the top African scorer in the 25 years since the revamping of the English top flight.

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