The Super Eagles of Nigeria on the 9th day and 13th day of October will face off with two North African teams in a friendly encounter during the International break window. Coach Gernot Rohr and his side will play Algeria and Tunisia respectively.
Gernot Rohr, last week released the list of players called up, and it had a mix of new players, the likes of Goalkeeper Matthew Yakubu, Samson Tijani, Zadu Sanusi, Frank Onyeka etc.
Looking at the future of Key Nigerian players on this list in their European Clubs respectively, it doesn’t seem like everything is right.
For the Likes of Alex Iwobi, Leon Balogun, and a number of these players at their European clubs, it’s not looking very good as it’s expected that your national team players should be regulars at their clubs, if not Super regulars but should have some decent game time at their club.
For a player like Iwobi, when the Everton’s B team is being played, he seems to even struggle to get on the bench atimes.
Iwobi has had just 27 league appearances since joining Everton last summer, and has scored just once, having not started many games, and for punters whose interest is Betting on football players to score goals, Iwobi is out totally for such betting.
This doesn’t look very good, and the national team shouldn’t be a rehabilitation ground and Coach Rohr and the rest of the coaching crew shouldn’t make it a situation that a player would have a spot in the team, because it’s a particular player who has always had it good with the team or a special preference, even if the player isn’t getting game time in his club, it shouldn’t be so.
Though there could be the argument of the player training with his club, but training is very much different from match fitness.
Even though these players are established players of the Super Eagles, there will be a point when the coach will have to tell the players to get playing time or move away from the club as we’ve seen players move to other clubs, even clubs lower to their current team just to get playing time.
A perfect example is Olivier Giroud, who complained when he wasn’t getting enough playing time at Chelsea and pushed to move away from the club, even though it didn’t materialise. But his desire to want to move then, was
about the National team for him, especially for the Euro 2020 with France, though was postponed.
For Nigerian players,it does seem like they get too comfortable and relaxed with sitting on the bench and not playing, and they lack the confidence to tell the coach of their clubs to play them or ask for a move.
So these players, especially Alex Iwobi who’s very young should be looking at moving to another club to get regular playing time, as things aren’t looking very good for him as Everton have got better players filling the same position.
And if he’s got any desire to feature for the Super Eagles of Nigeria at the upcoming tournaments he should move.
On this case, there could be a question of who’s going to sign him?
A player who downgraded from Arsenal to Everton, what will be the plan once again?
For the Super Eagles, the crew should actually be looking out for alternative players and give some of these fringe players a chance, and that’s just what Coach Gernot Rohr is doing currently.
