Former Nigeria international, Austin Jay-Jay Okocha has slammed Super Eagles coach Gernot Rohr for his tactical approach that led to the team’s defeat to Croatia in their 2018 FIFA World Cup opener.The Eagles kicked off their World Cup campaign on a disappointing note as they fell 2-0 to Croatia at the Kaliningrad Stadium in Kaliningrad, Russia on Saturday night.An own goal by Oghenekaro Etebo on 33 minutes and a well-taken penalty by Luka Modric in the 70th minute gave the Croatians the win.Okocha, who is serving as a guest analyst on SuperSport, said the reason for the loss was because the Nigerian players were fielded in wrong positions; that the team did not get the best out of Alex Iwobi and Victor Moses because Rohr was trying to accommodate Mikel Obi.“The reason we lost was because we played our best players out of their positions,” the former skipper of the national team said.Read Also:Odemwingie blames team selection for Eagles’ defeat to Croatia“We didn’t have a creative player today. Mikel has been a good servant to the national team. His best position is playing in front of the defence. We saw what he did playing for Chelsea where he had a glorious career.“The most creative player in that team is Alex Iwobi but he was played on the flanks. He (Iwobi) can play on the flanks at Arsenal because they had better players in that role like Mesut Ozil.“Playing Mikel in that position didn’t help Moses and Iwobi on the flanks.”Okocha, who represented Nigeria at the 1994, 1998 and 2002 editions of the World Cup, added: “The manager didn’t earn his money today. We were not a threat in the first half and I was expecting him to play three at the back, five players in the midfield and two strikers to the team a chance to get back into the game.“It is sad because I know we can do better than this. Of course there is still hope but we have to do it the hard way now,” he stated.As it stands, Croatia sit at the top of the group with three points, followed by Argentina and Iceland with one point each, while Nigeria sit at the bottom.The Eagles will hope to reboost their chances of surviving the group when they face Iceland in their next game on Friday June22.Ripples Nigeria… without borders, without fears

Stupid coach! Mikel that is a defensive midfielder for almost 10 years is now a supporting striker overnight....
We are paying the money we own the Oyinbo people grandparents....
Imagine using one striker where we have Ahmed Musa and Iheanacho on the bench... Why cant we play 343! We use 343 in friendly and the mad oyinbo man use 4231 against Croatia....
Thank God I did not uy the jersey..
I never fall for scam......

Phenotech:
Stupid coach! Mikel that is a defensive midfielder for almost 10 years is now a supporting striker overnight....
We are paying the money we own the Oyinbo people grandparents....
Imagine using one striker where we have Ahmed Musa and Iheanacho on the bench... Why cant we play 343! We use 343 in friendly and the mad oyinbo man use 4231 against Croatia....
Thank God I did not uy the jersey..
I never fall for scam......

Rohr lost the match for Nigeria before even the first kick by being negative and defensive.
Even Mourinho,the grand master of negative football won't have set out from the onset to play Iwobi,our most creative player indeed,and Moses,another creative one,as pure defenders.
Assuming he even knew his onions and wanted to follow that defensive route,then he would have sacrificed Iwobi or Moses on the bench and play another defensive midfielder.
That way he plays a proper defensive midfielder that covers and supports slightly.
But by playing both Iwobi and Moses from start as defenders,he lost their creative spark,ceding all offensive play to the Croats,and also lost their defensive abilities,because Iwobi in particular,not being a defender,was clogging the left flank and got tired as expected.
Rohr just succeeded in making a purely average Croatian team look good on us,because save for d two self inflicted goals,our goalkeeper wasn't truly tested throughout the match.

Yes. He's rite.. I blame d team's strategy... Mikel's interest shud nt b put over d team's... Subsequent matches shud tk a different look if we must progess in dis WC.. I know dis Super eagles av strength sha; but weda it wud b used to impress @d WC or fly back home is anoda tin.

I think NFF that hired the carpenter sort of a coach should know what to do now. The oyinbo man should be sacked and an indigenous coach who knows our football and players too well should be employed to salvage the situation on ground.

We mustn't be eliminated just like that.

We can only win our next match playing 352
Was thinking he was gonna adapt to it in d second half. He should henceforth play omerou, ekong & balogun as 3 @ d back. Ndidi Mikel & iwobi @ d midfield (iwobi as ten, Mikel should support ndidi at blocking 4 to protect d back 3). Y ebuehi plays right wing back & moses plays left wing back. Nwankwo & iheanacho should play alternately upfront like dey did against Argentina in d friendly

When the same coach was able to navigate the Super Eagles out of the group of death during the qualifiers making Nigeria the first African team to make it to Russia. Everybody was praising him and how good he was, but suddenly he is useless and stupid and deserve to be sacked. Coaching is that easy i guess!.