Football
ISL: SC East Bengal sign ex-Birmingham City star Jacques Maghoma
With just a day left for the transfer window to close, Indian Super League (ISL) new boys SC East Bengal have secured another new signing in the form of Congolese winger Jacques Maghoma, the club confirmed on Monday.
The Tottenham Hotspur academy product has previously plied his trade for Sheffield Wednesday and Burton Albion, and arrives in Kolkata after five years with English Championship side Birmingham City, where his contract expired earlier this year.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGhvnHOB2-Q/
The 32-year-old is primarily a left-sided winger but can play anywhere in midfield and should provide head coach Robbie Fowler additional options when he leads his troops in the ISL this season.
With close to 50 goals and 50 assists in 380 appearances in the Championship and League Two combined, Maghoma should prove to be a major asset for the Red and Golds in terms of attacking output. He also has 21 appearances for his country, having scored for them once.
Maghoma joined Birmingham in 2015 under then manager Gary Rowett and featured 21 times for the Blues last term. Although he has just a solitary goal to show along with a couple of assists, to be fair to him, 12 out of those 21 caps were cameos from the bench.
The ISL should therefore be the perfect stage for him, considering the fact that his experience of playing at the top level should help him integrate well with players around him in midfield and attack, despite being new to Indian conditions.
He becomes the Red and Gold’s fifth sixth foreign recruit after Daniel Fox, Scott Neville, Aaron-Amadi Halloway, Anthony Pilkington and Matti Steinmann with the seventh spot still open for contention ahead of the new season.
Also read: SC East Bengal's full coaching staff — Who will assist Robbie Fowler?
