African players in Europe: Superb Kudus goal in vain as City take title

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Ghana international Mohammed Kudus scored a brilliant goal for West Ham at the weekend, but could not stop Manchester City winning 3-1 to clinch a fourth straight Premier League title.

City finished on 91 points — two above runners-up Arsenal — who came from behind to beat Everton 2-1 after Senegalese Idrissa Gueye put the visitors ahead.

Congolese Yoane Wissa was the other African scorer in the Premier League as his Brentford team fell 4-2 to Newcastle.

Here are the African headline-makers in the major European leagues:

ENGLAND

IDRISSA GUEYE (Everton)

Gueye put Everton in front at Arsenal with a free-kick from outside the box in the 40th minute that took a huge deflection off Declan Rice and looped beyond goalkeeper David Raya for his fourth Premier League goal of the season. Arsenal equalised shortly afterwards through Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kai Havertz netted a late winner, but the Gunners finished two points behind champions Manchester City.

MOHAMMED KUDUS (West Ham)

Kudus scored with a breathtaking overhead kick against City as West Ham pulled a goal back to make it 2-1 and rattle the nerves of fans at the Etihad. It was his eighth goal of the season in the English top-flight. But the visitors produced just one other shot on target and City cantered to a 3-1 win.

YOANE WISSA (Brentford)

Wissa set up Brentford’s first goal and then curled a superb effort past Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope from just outside the penalty area for his 12th Premier League goal of the season as the home team pulled two goals back after going 3-0 down. But Bruno Guimaraes scored again for the visitors.

ITALY

M’BAYE NIANG (Empoli)

The 29-year-old converted a late penalty in a 1-1 draw to help Empoli stay alive in the race to avoid relegation from Serie A. Niang, who has played in England, France and Turkey in a well-travelled career, put his team ahead at Udinese in the 90th minute. But in the 14th minute of stoppage time Lazar Samardzic levelled, also from the penalty spot.

GERMANY

SERHOU GUIRASSY (Stuttgart)

Guirassy bagged a double as Stuttgart beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 4-0 and leapfrogged Bayern Munich into second place. The 28-year-old headed in an Enzo Millot chip to open the scoring after 23 minutes and struck again with a low drive eight minutes later. The Guinea international finished with 28 goals in 28 Bundesliga matches.

VICTOR BONIFACE (Bayer Leverkusen)

Boniface scored Bayer’s first goal in a 2-1 home win over Augsburg. Moroccan Amine Adli pressed Augsburg goalkeeper Tomas Koubek into an error and squared the ball for the Nigerian to tap home.

OMAR MARMOUSH (Eintracht Frankfurt)

Marmoush continued an excellent first campaign at Eintracht, winning and converting a 77th-minute penalty in a 2-2 draw with RB Leipzig. The Egyptian finished the campaign with 12 goals.

FRANCE

KAMORY DOUMBIA (Brest)

The Malian international set up his side’s opening goal in a 3-0 win at Toulouse that allowed Brest to finish third and qualify automatically for next season’s Champions League against all the odds. It is a remarkable achievement for the modest club from Brittany and 21-year-old attacking midfielder Doumbia has been one of their star performers this term. Last week he won the prize for goal of the season in Ligue 1 for a stunning strike against Lorient in December.

BAMBA DIENG (Lorient)

The Senegal international striker scored two goals in Lorient’s 5-0 win over Clermont to double his tally for the season in Ligue 1. The big victory was not enough for Lorient to stay up — they ended level on points and goal difference with Metz but were relegated automatically because Metz scored more away goals in head-to-head meetings of the teams. Metz, whose side features Dieng’s Senegal colleague Lamine Camara, will get another chance to stay up in a two-legged play-off against a Ligue 2 team.

 

© Agence France-Presse

Photo: Twitter @_owurakuampofo

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Dylan Johnson