Ideye dire as Tianjin Teda struggle without captain Mikel

Brown Ideye’s barren spell continued in the Chinese Super League as Tianjin Teda bowed 3-0 at home to Guangzhou Evergrande on Sunday afternoon.

Since his move from Olympiacos few months back, the 28-year-old has failed to live up to expectation as he has gone four games without a goal – the latest against Southern China Tigers.

Despite getting to play for the entire duration of the game, Ideye could not stop his team from going down to visitors who secured maximum points courtesy Ricardo Goulart’s brace and Hanchao Yu’s effort.

Tianjin Teda have struggled without the presence of their influential skipper, John Obi Mikel who is out of action owing to injury.

The midfielder has already missed two games since suffering an abdominal strain in their 2-0 win against Chongqing Lifan – where he got his first league goal for the club.

With this recent defeat, Jaime Pacheco’s men slide to 11th with five points from five games. They host relegation-threatened Yanbian in their next game. And hopefully, they would have Mikel back in the team to stabilize their shaky backline.