₦airaland Forum

Eleniyan15:
I said it mexico can shake table God save german team
If you not watching this match you missing seriously
They should have been at least 3-4 goals in this match, very fast pace game

Germany are being bent over. Mexico is giving them a fight for their life.

This is the same Mexico who were on our level some years ago. This same Mexico struggled to get a draw against Stephen Keshi team, look at them making nonsense of Germany while we are here having roforofo fight over Mikel and why he was not at fault for creating anything.

Watching Mexico out balling Germany. This is what football should be.

TheGoodJoe:
I have told you people the same thing over and over again but you guys have continued with your false doctrine.

Iheanancho was good in the game against South Africa but the midfield failed in taking advantage of his runs. Yet you people want to blame Iheanacho for the midfield not finding him.

Now Ighalo offered little movement upfront and now you people want to blame Mikel for our conservative style.

Playing Mikel deeper means you guys want Iwobi or Iheanacho in attack midfield to support Ighalo because he is not capable of causing defenders problem.

It might work but it kills our three man midfield combos who can contribute defensively and keep us compact in the Middle. To take advantage of this, we need movement upfront. This was our problem, not Mikel.

When Iheanacho entered, with Mikel in the side, we were deadlier. It is so easy to see. Look at the window when Iheanacho attacked and tell me we would not have cause the Croatians more problems.

OH please stop this. Iheanacho managed just one way word shot that flew 2 meters over the bar in the 30mins or so that he featured. He basically didn't do anything else of note.
One expects the no10 or ATM will be able to hold the ball, beat his man and drive through traffic to create chances for his team. Don't you watch De Bryn, Ozil, Coutinho, Ericson? Can you draw any parallel line with what they do and what Mikel served up last night?

Even the Kelechi you're championing, was he not in the game against Poland where he dropped a 4/10 average? Please give me a break.

TheGoodJoe:
Classic case of totally missing the point.

Against South Africa, Iheanacho made repeated runs to space to take advantage of the wide gaps created by the South Africans. Unfortunately, we did not have the midfielder to take advantage of Iheanacho's runs. With Mikel, we would have torn the South Africans to shreds.

In this case, the runs and movement were not made by Ighalo, so Mikel did not have the opportunity to using his passing range to our advantage.

Gerrit?

You will always find one excuse to give no matter what. After the South African game, you claimed Mikel was the missing link for kelechi. Now Mikel is here, you switch to Kelechi. The same Kelechi who have proved time and time again his inability to play as a single striker. Infact it was after his stinker against SA that he lost the starting spot in the Super Eagles till date.

It’s a disappointing result and performance, and we only had one effort on goal which was a looping header.

“Mikel needs to play deeper in the role he is used to with Chelsea and Iwobi needs to play in the middle.”....... Osaze

That's another quote from an ex international, pointing at Mike's failings. Do you know football more than Okocha and Osaze? Did you ever play for Super Eagles? If these guys are pointing finger at Mikel, who are you to suggest they are all wrong and you're right?

'We're not just professional on set-pieces' - Gernot Rohr defends tactics, Mikel in Croatia loss



The Super Eagles were punished for their lack of coordination while defending set-pieces, according to the German gaffer

Nigeria's only undoing against Croatia was defending set-pieces and not the tactical approach, according to coach Gernot Rohr.

The Super Eagles failed to break their World Cup opening game jinx with an own goal from Oghenekaro Etebo and a Luka Modric penalty, both coming off mistakes from corner kicks, condemning them to a 2-0 defeat at the Kaliningrad Stadium.

The west African side have now failed to win their first games at the quadrennial tourney since the 1998 edition when they won Spain 3-1. Also, the goals conceded were the third and fourth off corner kick situations in their previous three encounters.

Rohr's choice of tactics was questioned by fans and pundit alike . But the German handler has defended the urge not to revert to a back-three, stating they did well in countering Zlatko Dalic's approach and, however, only missed being 'professional' from set-piece situations.

[b]"I think the organisation was okay. We didn't concede from normal play, we conceded from set-pieces," Rohr said after the game.

"Our system was okay. We cannot play with three when there is only one centre-forward, so we played with four because Croatia had three strikers. What we were missing today was to be more professional on set-pieces. Each game is different, we will see for the next game. We know we can play with three centre-backs but today was not that day.

Rohr also jumped to the defence of team captain John Obi Mikel - subbed off in the closing stages of the game after failing to exert his influence, and particularly failing to link effectively with striker Odion Ighalo.

"We play all the time with Mikel in this role of offensive midfield. It's was going well, we qualified and the team built behind them.

"I know he plays before in defensive midfield, in China he plays offensive and defensive. When we don't have the ball, everyone is defensive. Obi Mikel tried his best, it's not easy when you have to play against Modric and Rakitic when you see the clubs where they play and then the clubs where our players play.

On Alex Iwobi, he said: "Iwobi deserved to start the game, he had big work to do defensively against the right-back, he did it well, he had to work a lot, perhaps he was missing the energy for his offensive game.

"He did well, it was not his fault we lost the game."

Rohr still harbours hope that Nigeria can qualify from Group D, believing his side can muster four points off Iceland and Argentina - who played a 1-1 draw at the Spartak Stadium, earlier on Saturday .


"It's important to make at least four points to qualify. All is in our hands. Let's be positive and believe we can do it.

"We have the youngest team at the World Cup. Let them learn from this match and do better. We saw Iceland they are a strong team and they can do very well, but we know we can also do better."[/b]

Nigeria, rooted to the bottom of Group D with no point, face World Cup debutant Iceland on June 22.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/were-not-just-professional-on-set-pieces-gernot-rohr-defends/1mc95khwa4tg01an0gabopzqtm

Kog45:
Thanks baba for bringing this out.

I remember that you and Michael2 are good critics of Rohr not some who always makes U TURN when we had it bad.

Hope to see good match against Iceland.

Oga mi, no be today, since 2016. I don't know why it takes a loss for people to start having deep thoughts.

Match stats.

Neither Uzoho nor Subasic had a save to make all match but we still lost 2:0. Should have been a goalless draw atleast if we were better organized.

Mickael2:
the issues, I had assumed previously, were quite obvious for all to see. But I have just been shell shocked since I came online, people are blaming everyone except the players who should actually be blamed. watch them twist what you said bowl

That's how we roll on this thread. It's always me against them, my player must not be criticized mentality. Not genuine attempt to dissect the problems of the team.
Even up till last week, they didn't want to believe the team was not in good shape. Trying to force the opinion that Rohr is hiding tactics and the Super Eagles have always been bad in friendliess.

TheGoodJoe:
You start by trying to discredit people by tagged their analysis sentimental. Talk of Mikel and Ndidi being piss in distribution and then use Ndidi misplacing passes to justify your distribution ideology.

Haaa.

Ndidi was working more with Etebo. Not Mikel. Mikel's distribution was not a problem. Few errors to the best of my knowledge. We had Limited shot on goals because of our conservative style and lack of movement upfront.

How the heck does Mikel get the blame for that beats my imagination.

Mikel played the no 10 role. If you struggle to create chances, the number 10 is usually held responsible.

TheGoodJoe:
I think whoscored gave Mikel a high pass completion average. So why link him to misplace passes baffles me. Then you tag people being Sentimental. Analyse without trying to discredit people.

Those pass completion didn't reflect on chances created and he was the most advanced midfielder.
Were you not the one who claimed the absence of Mikel was the reason Kelechi didn't get service against South Africa? Why didn't the presence of Mikel create chances last night?

Mickael2:
That's not what matters now but how the team will move forward, they are representing Nigeria anyways. But there are some issues here

First of all Mikel was poor, very very poor. There was only one reasonable chance that Mikel created, the one he gave to Nacho which Nacho should have dropped back for him because Mikel was in a better position yet he choose to shoot, looking for the glory for himself. Mikel dispossessed Modric by the corner flag and he just passed the ball to Subasic, is that a chance created? Mikel was supposed to do a 1-2 with Moses but passed the ball far ahead of Moses and there was no way Moses was going to get that ball so he dived, is that a chance created? Modric was easily the best player on the pitch followed by Rakitic why? Whenever Modric had the ball no Nigerian player bothered to press him, and that was supposed to be the work of Mikel and since nobody was pressuring him he had enough time to pick his passes precisely. In fact from the 52-78 minutes Modric was not dispossessed even once because nobody dared to mark him. Even when Rakitic also dropped into Modrics role towards the end of the game nobody was marking him either. Mikel was bad, let us not hide that fact but to me he remains our best bet in the AMF role, there is no assurance that Iwobi would have done better.


All the blames on Shehu are all pointless. Two seasons ago at Barca, Alba was very very poor because he was playing on the same wing with Neymar but last season he was a totally different beast. When you play on the same wing with a player who likes to dribble so much, you as a fullback will be reluctant to attack knowing fully well that any mistake and you would be out of position badly and that was what clearly restricted Shehu. There were times when Moses had better options yet he choose to beat his man, after seeing that will you still want to attack knowing fully well that the person you are living behind is Perisic, a quick winger? Also, the lack of press on Modric by Mikel was easily the reason why Perisic kept on receiving accurate long balls but instead of blaming Mikel we blame Shehu? The young guy contained Perisic which nobody can really guarantee that Ebuehi could have done especially since we were a goal down and the onus would have been on Ebuehi to attack leaving gaps for Perisic. Cut Shehu some slack, he was not bad today. not outstanding but absolutely solid.


we really need to tell our GK that there is a difference between winning and losing. even when we were losing it took him hours to get the ball back in play allowing the Croatians to regroup and easily counter our long balls.


this one is going to create serious controversy but I wasn't overly impressed with Etebo. too many back passes, just too many. too much ball hogging, just too much. he pressed well, won the ball back well but did absolutely nothing with it except the driving runs that he made once or twice which all happened in the middle of the pitch which really didn't matter. Now peeps want him to play as the 10 after that performance against Algeria and SA in that role? that should not happen any time soon. Ndidi was anonymous in this match, he was not the deepest midfielder so I would have guessed that it was his work to carry the ball forward which he absolutely did not do all game long.

Your analysis is very apt and totally spot on. It's unbelievable, at this age people are still sentimental and defensive of their favourite players.

Fact is that Ndidi and Mikel were piss poor in ball circulation. I lost count how many times Ndidi passed the ball straight to an opponent.
I think Rohrs plan was to contain the Croats and hope for something to drop, while the Baltics played it safe and didn't try to force anything, knowing that Nigeria will self implode at some point, especially from dead balls and corner kicks.

The problem with our tactics is that Rohr had no contingency plan if his team went a goal down. Because it's a different ball game matching the Croats, which he set up to team to do than trying to force the opening when you are a goal behind.

Again, back to Mikel, do you know it took until the 2nd half before we had a shot at goal? A tame shot for that matter.The fanatics here made us believe the absence of Mikel against Poland and Serbia was the reason why we hardly had a shot at goal in those games.Being the most advanced midfielder, what was his job, if not to create chances?

“It was a decent first half but maturity was the edge the Croatian team had over the Nigerian team,” Okocha said on SuperSport, where he was a guest analyst, after the game.

“The Super Eagles got done by the movements of the Croatian team in their box. The Super Eagles midfielders were not doing their best both in defending and in attack.

“Eagles didn’t geg the best out of Alex Iwobi and Victor Moses because the manager was trying to accommodate Mikel Obi in the team.

“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.

“These (Croatians) are world class players who know how to win by exploiting little details.”

Okocha also blamed Rohr for deploying Mikel in the creative role.

“We didn’t have a creative player today,” the former Nigeria No.10 added. “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.

“The reason why we lost was because we played our best players out of their positions.

“Playing Mikel in that position didn’t help Moses and Iwobi on the flanks.”

Jay Jay Okocha speaking after the loss.
Mikel was the elephant in the room apparently, but our Lemmon analysts would rather kill Shehu on nairaland.

“It’s difficult to explain. We talked about it and considering the fact that we trained on it. It’s four goals conceded now from set-piece,” Mikel said in his post-match interview after the game, also referring to goals conceded in friendly defeats to England and Czech Republic.

“We have to keep going to try to improve on set pieces.”

Mikel was also quick to play down talk of his teammates’ inexperience against the star-studded Croatian side.

“I think the young guys did well but we just have to keep going and trying to get better,” he added.

Mikel Obi

AIG07:
hahaha why is Shehu weak and defense less? See something o.


On Ekong, I have pointed his error out. But he was busy trying to cover up for the same Shehu through out the game. No wonder he was stretched to the breaking point and he yielded.
He even turned Moses into a full back.

If he's not, why are you guys not calling out the big boys who flopped?

You really think Moses have no defensive responsibilities, especially tracking back to double team on Perisic, Croatias most dangerous player on the wings?
Why do you think Moses started on the right instead of the left where he has featured for the Super Eagles previously?

Mujtahida:
Bros, I'm I like Ebuehi but this reasoning that Ebuehi would have salvaged the situation is too simplistic to me.

I'm still dazed how people would think Ebuehi would have been the messiah in this game. Shocking comments I've been reading this night.

AIG07:
When your full backs are poor and clueless.,there is nothing your wingers can do.

Shehu a full back that can not open up space to receive pass for crossing is that one a fullback?

Bascovanveli and Goldfish80, you guys are not honest with the truth. Shehu was below par. Even Idowu though not phenomenal improved on his game.

Why did you think Modric kept playing those long balls to his side. They knew Shehu was not just it.
He was caught out of position so many times. Not a single cross from him.

In short he was Echiejile on the right.

Let me ask you a question, I would like if you gave a honest reply.
How good was Ndidi and Mikel in the middle, especially with their ball distribution? How good was Iwobi? These guys were responsible for Nigerias inability to launch a sustained attack worthy of breaching Croatia.
Why is nobody talking about Ekong's cheap penalty give away? Was the Croatian player going to score if he left him alone?
How about the 2 center backs positioning in the box when the first corner kick went in? Do you know, none of our defenders where in position to get the second ball off that corner?

We don't want to mention all these but the whole blame is on Shehu of course. This is the reflection of the Nigerian society, were the perceived weak and defenseless are targeted. Sad reality of our times.

Mujtahida:
I do not know whether it is Shehu or our right back( to the extent that Ebuehi would have made no difference) that the Croats targeted but lots of their attacks were initiated through that position.

Because their key man, Perisic plays on the left. I can't even recall at anytime Perisic got the better of Shehu. Honestly, the Shehu witch hunt is becoming embarrassing.

Humility017:
but he would have played better than shehu...
all through the friendlies lately he played better coupled with the fact that he offers more offensively and he is a natural RB.

please tell me about shehu....hope you are aware that the crots first goal which resulted from a corner...really came in from the right wing back....shehu failure to stop the crots birth the corner kick....

Are you suggesting the missing link for Nigeria in this game was Ebuehi? Nawa for una oh

safarigirl:
which one is dishonest people again?

Wetin that one mean? You don't know what Ebuehi would have done because Rohr did not play him. However, Shehu was played and was adjudhed clueless, even by the commentator

The real dishonest people are those who fail to accept that Shehu was ineffective today....then again, what is expected of a make-shift Right Back?

Argue about forcing square pegs in round holes before calling people dishonest because their opinions differ from yours

Shehu didn't do any worse than Mikel.
By the way is it just now you people are realizing Shehu offers nothing up front. Some of us called for changes in that area since last year after the the South African match.

BascoVanVeli:
Ikr. I am asking for moments that he was exposed and they are speaking in riddles.

That's what you get with dishonest people. They speak as if Ebuehi would have assisted a goal if he started. It's absolute nonsense.

ChrisKels:
Good, oya tell me, how many of Keshi's afcon winning squad made it to Brazil 2014?

Much more than the number that started today.
We are talking of a staring line up of Emenike, Osaze and Musa, a midfield of Onazi and Mikel, Yobo and Omerua, Enyeama and Efe Ambrose. Also add Victor Moses.
Can you compare their experience with Ekongs, Baloguns, Idowus, Shehus, Iwobis and Ighalos, plus Uzoho.
The difference is clear Bro, except we want to play the ostrich as usual.

BascoVanVeli:
That is his job. He would have done the same for Tyrone. Shehu was never exposed name your moment of frailty so I can go back and check.

They want to make Shehu their escape goat. Very pathetic reasoning by people posing as analysts.

ChrisKels:
So how exprienced was Keshi's team?

By the way, Musa and Echiejile have been to the world cup before.

Keshi's team played Afcon and confed cup. Remember guys like Osaze and Emenike were in that team.

Mujtahida:
Abeg tell me the world cup standard of island or Peru or Australia. Abeg tell me

These 3 teams have big tournament experiences. Island with Euros, Peru with Copa America, Australia with the Asian championship and 2014 world cup.

In our starting 11,only Mikel and Moses have big tournament experience for the Super Eagles. That should tell you everything

Goke7:
egbon ,we even had substandard players in 2014 and we drew an iran that beat morrocco yesterday and a bosnian team that plays better than this overrated croatian team. was a babatunde world cup standard that troubled a very good bosnian side and gave a delightful pass to musa to score one of the best goals in 2014 against argentina.

How world cup standard are iceland players for christ sake

Funny enough, the present crop are not even as talented as the ones in 2014.
Trust me, we took more naturally talented players to Brazil.

edi287:
Mikel played as a DLP in the last world cup. Mikel only started having an extended run as a 10 under Rohr.
We made it very easy for Croatia. His tactics were wrong.

I only blame Rohr for not getting it right with the correct tactics when defending corner kicks. It makes me wonder the purpose of the camping in Austria.

That said, the team picked itself today, if we are honest. Nigerians still haven't realized how much overhyped these players are.
Fighting this over hype is the main reason I'm in the black books of many people here.

kennysville:
Abeg make we no dey overhype this tournament experience. This is an obvious situation. We knew where our strength lies and where our weaknesses lie. You know that we played iwobi in the middle and got a very good result at least against England. Why revert him to the wings? Who was our play maker today? Moses? Who was supposed to do ball distribution? Mikel?

Haba! The coach got it all wrong. Shikena

Even if you played Iwobi in midfield, nothing would have changed. Absolutely nothing.
We'd still have lost.

edi287:
Rohr is a 100 percent to blame.
He got his tactics 100 percent wrong. Mikel should be playing as a DLP. Iwobi as a 10, Etebo out wide.
Rohr becomes nothing more than a budget Godwin Uwua when he can't motivate his players. My eyes are open now. I was hoping he'd change and spring up a surprise but this guy is tactically useless.
Keshi is a better tactician

Amodu was a better Tactician

Siasia is a Million times better
Oliseh is not his mate.

I hate this guy man. It's so painful that Croatia didn't even need to get off first gear to beat us COMFORTABLY.
Bleep Rohr abeg!!

Mikel have never played that position for Nigeria. We can blame the coach all we want but the truth is that our players aren't world cup standard.
Look at the goal return of our starting front 3 for their clubs.

safarigirl:
na the coach I overrate

It's not entirely the faulty of the coach. This team lacks big tournament experience. Most of these guys are playing a big tournament for the Super Eagles for the first time.
You can't buy experience.

Jarus:
Our prayer should now be to get a point.

Not even not to come last in the group.

Bro, the manner we lost this one scare me.

safarigirl:
this Croatian side is shiit

If we go down, we are certainly going with them

But they beat us playing in gear 1. I overrated this super eagles team by my standards