₦airaland Forum

9JAMac10:
I think it’s a blessing in disguise that lookman is suspended for the next game. Honestly lookman too selfish and has been terrible for the national team in last couple of games . Nigeria can win without lookman

That's because we are playing him out of position. Lookman is not a winger or creator. He's a finisher. Plays best as supporting striker,striker or inside forward. Just like putting oshimen on the wings then complaining he's not effective or the way we have been complaining about Iwobi for years

kennysville:
Akor Adams score today now, people rush discard Tolu Arokodare, in a team that has never enjoyed a blissful midfield since 2019. NA so we dey do. The next shiny toy

be like you dey my mind. Always looking for the next hero or victim is our major problem. Instead of fixing the system,creating enabling environment we will be looking for a hero or scapegoat everytime

After every match,we keep blaming different players. If it's not Iwobi it's Ekong or someone else. The tactics is terrible. This was very evident in the last 10 mins in which even when it was obvious ndidi and Iwobi were tired,he left them and brought in defenders and we started falling back to pack the bus. Lesotho had two glorious chances. Instead of fortifying the midfield. He go dey do rubbish. That's the effect of tactics. If this man is not putting players out of position he's making wrong substitutions. Same thing against Zimbabwe shore up the midfield he brought in Boniface,then we conceded last minute. Same thing should have happened today but somehow we escaped. I hope he or someone close to him sees this pattern and he learns from it. The midfield is the engine of the team,you can't outstrikers or out defenders a terrible midfield

Rockyrascal:
I thought is 2 goals

You're right. It's 2. Only if we didn't concede that goal would have been one and easy but 2 is a lot for our team that hardly score goals

So we need to beat Benin by 3 goals to qualify. South Africa will win Rwanda and top the group. We will beat Benin by a line goal margin but finish 3rd. Hope everyone learns their lessons going forward and we do better for the next qualifiers

I hope Chelle sees that packing defenders is not the way. You need the midfield to lock it down. Lesotho had two very good chances that an average team would have scored from and those two came after packing defenders.
Also Nwabali needs serious talking to. He too dey do. He would make mistakes and be blaming others. All in all,Chelle isn't the man for me

Does Simon have this man nudes or something. Just take him out and bring a midfielder and push Iwobi to the wings.

Wondering when this man will take out someone and bring a midfielder to lock down the game. This is giving Zimbabwe Vibes where we conceded a late goal

It's funny how people are reacting like this isn't what's suppose to happen. Football is tactics,putting players in their best positions,using the right system. It's not by packing names and strikers. Lookman isn't a winger. He's an inside forward or support striker. He will always look to shoot. Put it beside oshimen simple or take him out. That's what he plays at Atalanta. Simon is useless on the right cos he can't use his one trick there. Iwobi should be far closer to the strikers. We need one more dm so we can push both full backs forward to overload the wings and the wingers can tuck in closer to the box. That's the only way to break down this team. Anything apart from that,we are staring at another draw and the official end of our world cup 2026 qualifications dreams

If for some reason we are obsessed with playing 442 which I honestly don't think it's the best formation for our team. A 352 is a better fit.
The best way to maximize our player playing 442 is to play 2 dms or cms any two of Onyeka,Onyedika ndidi or even uche. Iwobi and Moses Simon should fight for the left wing, but never at the same time. Chukwueze and nathan tella should fight for the right wing. Iwobi can also be moved to the right. Lookman and oshimen upfront. Lookman can be withdrawn for a Tolu. That way we maximize our players and make it balanced. This current set up is not the optimal one and we have tried it more than 20 times and it has never worked.

Dannyxy:
Iwobi looses the ball a lot under pressure in midfield, he cant beat a press player Toh composure, yes he as eye for final pass but can’t control a midfield, Ndidi is a box to box midfielder that is aging.


Where is the midfield control?
This is the reason we are hardly composed and loose games or draw games, we don’t control the game, we let opponents grow into the game, and like that iwobi or ndidi looses a ball in bad places, quick run to the right, they square the ball, ekong does his ekong thing, chakam we are down 1-0…

Let’s get at least one decent ball holding midfielder, I miss Mikel o, even etebo was decent.

The reason is that Iwobi isn't a cm or dm. Ndidi is as you said box to box. That combination can never work in controlling a midfield. What amazes me is we have tried this over 5 years and under different coaches and no one in the technical committee has ever thought to themselves that this doesn't work. I wonder that the technical committee members do sef

So he still stuck to this Iwobi,Simon and lookman arrangement that has never worked. Fingers crossed. Hopefully magic happens

yinkeys:
He’d play Lookman where he’d be ineffective like always lol

you play lookman who's Africa best in a wrong position because of Simon. Indirectly you are saying Simon is better than lookman. If he wants to play both of them. Just play a traditional 442 with 2 dms,Simon on the left and Iwobi on the right,then lookman and oshimen upfront. Simple. No he will rather play players out of position. It's crazy

comodo:
U dey talk Chukwueze. That last name wey Dem smuggle in sef. Olakunle Olusegun. See as Dem hide the name

Exactly. What's the use of including him instead of another Cb like ogbu,Jordan or akpoguma. I really want to know the thought process of those in the technical committee

Odunayaw:
Why does this always come up sef?

just racking my head as to why a normal thinking coach who knows what he's doing will compile such a list having 5 CF with oshimen available and just 3 midfielders and yet you want to play a diamond formation that's based on midfield. Fingers crossed

Why does the list look like something the NFf technical committee complied and forced on the coach. It's only those ancient thinking men in that committee that would think because you need to win you invite 5 CF with no midfielders. How are the strikers going to get service and how many can you play at once. Either that or Chelle is out of depth and it's tactical understanding of the grade is extremely low. I just hope he abandons this his stupid 442 diamond or he gets sacked before the afcon if not he will disgrace us there.

I think our best formation going forward should be 352.
Gk - Nwabali/okoye
Cb- Fredricks,Ekong,Bassey.
The two outside Cb should be people that are agile. Ekong should always be in the centre. Other options are akpohuma,Jordan tournigba,igbo ogbu,Awaziem
Wingbacks - Rwb - Aina,osayi. Lwb - Felix agu,onyemachi. When sanusi is fit,Felix can be moved to the right and osayi dropped. He's not been convincing.
CM - the formation uses two dm who will cover the wings when both Wingbacks push forward to stretch play and constantly put in crosses and cut backs.
Onyedika with any of Onyeka,Ndidi.
AM - given a free role to orchestrate the attack and find the strikers and full backs with penetrative passes. Will also help in the defensive aspect.
Iwobi, Chrisantus uche,Fdb.
Attackers - Lookman and oshimen. Arokodare,moffi,desser as sub.

Players like Moses,chukwueze can be in the squad as options in case we need to change to a 3 attack but they should always start on the bench.
Nathan tella can be played at Rwb instead of osayi

Nwabali
. Fredricks. Ekong. Bassey
Aina. Onyedika. Onyeka. Agu
. Iwobi
. Oshimen. Lookman

kennysville:
But he doesnt play for top 5 leagues. plus his name is not Chukwueze or Moses Simon.....

You gerritttt?

On a very serious note, Sodiq is ,more or less a winger with end product. I said this many moons ago when he was being played as a right back. One thing I will always stand by is identity. Who are you and what are you good at? This make shift and so so copy copy of Europe is what is crippling us in Africa, Nigeria especially! Oyinbo people will act as though they are the only ones who can read soccer and modernize it and we are so gullible to swallow it hook line and sinker. They tell us the no 10 is a dying breed and we adjusted accordingly and started huffing balls in the air for a supposed pure no 9. No creativity in the middle. They tell us football is now science of time and space and tell us how to think and we bought it too. They infiltrated our thinking pattern so much that if it isn't from their mouths, it is automatically to be discarded.

Unfortunately also, the media that is supposed to be custodians of truth have also been compromised and now they also end up fanning the embers of western ideologies regarding who to play and how. Each journo also has his own special player in the national team. I know of one jounalist that no matter how bad Moses Simon plays in any match, he will perpetually defend his mediocrity in his tabloid. We are in the era of PR campaigns. The more you pay, the louder our journos make noise about you.

Coming back to the issue of identity, it is glaring to see that we have lost that identity in the national team. Every player is always gonna be either shifted to some uncomfortable position just to accomodate a liability. We sacrifice efficiency for "the good of the team". Now I hear Chukwueze should be drafted as a No 10. Question is this. Can he play that 10 for a sustained period of time? Does he have the intelligence of a 10? Does he even pass the ball? How accurate are his passes? In a nation of 200 million, there is no creative midfielder we can use? or we just don't have time to search for one. Oh I get it! he isn't popular yet and hence has no PR campaign. What we have as players in the current national team is all about a keran ma jele agenda. We dont have a team. All we have a super stars that have good complement of club players and coaching to go with it. No competition as status quo must always be maintained. We look at our players from the lens of what they do in their clubs. Do we play them accordingly? Iwobi plays from the left side of the field for so many years and has been found to be efficient there. But alas, he has to play from the deep where all his passes would have been neutered so they have no effectiveness. Lots to say but the more I type it, the more I get frustrated and angry at our team handlers. On a final thought, Nigeria needs to get back to its own brand of football where talent, discipline, grit and preparation meet to form a great synergy. There is a reason we always refer to the 94 team and its simply because of all the bolded attributes, they have it all. The current Super Eagles team only has talent and social media. O tan!

I understand your point, but you're contradicting yourself. If you're advocating for using players in their most effective positions, then we need to let go of 94 Eagles nostalgia. Yes, they were a golden generation, but we should not use them as the blueprint. We don't have to play a 4-4-2 formation if we lack the midfielders for it. We don't need our number 10 to play like Okocha. Debruyne as a number 10 and Okocha as a number 10 have different styles, and I would say Debruyne's style is far more effective and straightforward. Constantly forcing players into the style of the 94 Eagles will continue to be our downfall. Good coaches design systems to maximize players' strengths, not to force players into a fixed system. We've tried that several times, and it isn't working.

Odunayaw:
Granted.

Red circle is Ben. Orange is Ekong.

Does it look like that agenda that Chelle put "a slow right footer on the left side"? Ben went left to deal with the danger, there was zero pressure or reason for that own goal. It was exactly the same against Algeria at AFCON 2019

You are the one trying to hang Ekong as the culprit. But look at the bigger picture. Fredrick left RCB to close down the SA winger in the left side of defense because the guy already beat Bassey for pace,and you can clearly see Ekong was running back on a straight line in his LCB position but because he's slow,he's struggling to keep up,when the cross came in,he stretched out his right left to clear a ball from the left side,his awkward body positioning led to the own goal. Chelle himself saw his folly and rectified it in the second half. If after this explanation you still don't get,it's fine. We disagree to agree.

This was my take before the game. At half time what substitutions did Chelle make,the same thing I said. He took out Ekong,put bassey back to Cb and put a proper lb. Our goal came through a cross from the right side because the south Africans already overloaded the left so lookman changed wing and we were able to get a cross in. I don't remember any good cross from the left throughout the game. Moses as usual didn't play anything of note so he didn't need to have started as pointed out. I hope Chelle takes time to study his players carefully before Afcon. It's not just by putting 11 players on the pitch,it's putting them in their best positions to maximize their strengths and make the sum of their output greater than the individual players. If he doesn't figure that out,even with our big names we will struggle against unknown players who are well organized and are a team.

Diavolo:
I give up on Chelle. He's top stubborn in his ways for his own good. Fredrick is a Cb,so is it going to be bassey to lb or aina to lb and Fredrick to Rb. Why not put Felix agu as lb if you don't want to use oyemachi.
Also we have tried it more than 50 times and hasn't even worked,iwobi isn't a dm or cm,he's either an Amf or winger. Moses and lookman don't do well together because they both occupy the same spaces with iwobi also drifting to the left which leaves our right side of attack non existent. Putting lookman on the right also nullifies his strength. So no need having both of them at the same time.Teams have figured this out by overloading the left side and our attack becomes toothless. Instead of using one wing,we need to use both to stretch the game. Wrong personnel choice and player positioning as always. We will be lucky to get a draw.

Kog45:
Oga am talking of 4 own goals,pls can you explain that..

I'm talking of today's own goal. Today's own could have been prevented by putting him on the right side of defense. Yes he made a mistake but putting on the left side greatly increased the risk of that happening.

QueenJazz:
I have to say I agree. I was skeptical when I saw the starting line-up too and my intuition wasn't wrong.

That being said, Chelle stays. He has the right ideas. His problem so far is timing, but with enough time and familiarity, I'm confident he'll get things right.

I even said it before the game started immediately the line up was posted. Kudos to him for correcting his errors with the substitutions but he's being paid to make the right ones from beginning primarily.

Kog45:
Oga no be today Ekong dey do own goal...I can remember he did similar thing against Cameroon,Mexico

Anyone can do an own goal and there are various reasons why it happens ranging from just being unfortunate to outright stupidity. Today's own goal was because the coach put him in a difficult position. Remember he's very slow and primarily right footed and not bipedal like thiago silva or Ramos.

Odunayaw:
3 man backline doesn't understand this agenda

we played a 442 too not a 352. 352 on paper,442 on the pitch

Odunayaw:
Will you suffer a heart attack if you just said the truth

so you can't figure out that putting a right footed slow Cb on the left side of the defence carries the risk that he can do an own goal when dealing with low crosses coming in from the left?. It's basic principle. If bassey was in Ekong position,he would have cleared it with his left leg rather than Ekong having to awkwardly position his body to clear with his right leg leading to the own goal

MKPUOGALIGA:
Why are you guys like this for Christ sake. If you like dont start preparing for the next world cup after this one.....keep looking for scapegoat

because you don't understand the rudiments of the game doesn't mean others don't. Some of us are trained in this thing and can see the mistakes a mile away. So it's only normal for us to point it out. Even if we start preparing today for 2030 and the coach keeps making this rookie mistakes,we will be back at this same stage in 5 years only. Magic don't happen in football,the quality of your decisions determine your outcome.

The players tried but this is all on Chelle. When I pointed that the first half formation was wrong,some people here said he's the coach and we don't know what we are saying. Although he corrected all his mistakes in the second half,if he had started the right way,then he would instead have used the substitutions to change the game instead of using it to correct his mistakes. I hope going forward he starts thinking properly and stop over complicating things and putting players in wrong positions. That own goal is on him,Moses and lookman should never play at the same time bassey is a Cb not a lb,iwobi isn't a cm.

Pythagoras001:
Removal of ekong improved defense

this isn't on Ekong though. You put a right footed slow defender on the left side of the defence while putting a slow Cb as a lb against a very fast right winger,what do you think will happen. That own goal is in Chelle and his stupid decisions.

BankyGee:
I don't think you're interpreting the lineup properly tho.

okay. 352 is better than 442 diamond. So let's see how it goes,hopefully goes well for us.

BankyGee:
There's nothing stubborn about this lineup. Them no invite 23 players to be mannequins.

Na una dey panic anyhow. Any lineup we start, una go still complain. This is a good lineup. We have a good squad.

it's not a good line up. No need for Fredrick and Moses Simon. Put a proper lb instead of Fredrick.. Moses and lookman always drfit to the same side making the right side dead.
It happened against Zimbabwe and Rwanda,it will happen again today. Putting iwobi or chukwueze on the right instead of Moses balances this. Moses can come in for lookman second half.

I give up on Chelle. He's top stubborn in his ways for his own good. Fredrick is a Cb,so is it going to be bassey to lb or aina to lb and Fredrick to Rb. Why not put Felix agu as lb if you don't want to use oyemachi.
Also we have tried it more than 50 times and hasn't even worked,iwobi isn't a dm or cm,he's either an Amf or winger. Moses and lookman don't do well together because they both occupy the same spaces with iwobi also drifting to the left which leaves our right side of attack non existent. Putting lookman on the right also nullifies his strength. So no need having both of them at the same time.Teams have figured this out by overloading the left side and our attack becomes toothless. Instead of using one wing,we need to use both to stretch the game. Wrong personnel choice and player positioning as always. We will be lucky to get a draw.

This World Cup qualifying campaign has come to an end. Now, we need to start preparing for the next one. The first step in this process is to fire the technical team. There appears to be a lack of technical understanding among them, given the caliber of players they have allowed us to select and the way some players have been consistently put in the wrong positions over the years, a fact that is obvious to everyone but them.

Next, we need to decide whether to retain Chelle as our coach. In my opinion, he should be let go. He seems out of touch with reality if he believes that a 4-4-2 diamond formation will work with the type of players we have.

Finally, we should reorganize the logistics and planning department of the NFF to ensure they perform their jobs effectively. They need to create a conducive environment for the players and minimize distractions, particularly from skit makers and content creators, which were problematic during Finidi's time.