Awaziem is good but a journeyman. I can’t rate him until he becomes relevant in Europe. Similar to Awoniyi pre-Union, abundant talent but needs to settle and prove himself.
Bassey starts over all our CBs today. I can’t remember any CB we have had in recent years that is consistently performing at such a high level.
Regarding the statement in bold letters, I think the club wants to sell Bassey, one of the strong reasons but not the only reason why he sometimes starts in central defense, they are also marketing his versatility. I have analysed Balogun and Bassey very closely, i believe Balogun has the edge.
TheSuperNerd: First of all, he wasn't showboating. He was simply trying to escape 3 markers to get a cross in.
Secondly, this is him back to playing as a LB and he did put in some very good crosses in the final yesterday.
Thirdly, ain't no way he is just all brawns. I repeat... Bassey is probably the closest defender to Awaziem in terms of the perfect long ball pass execution. He even does it far better than Ekong. And his ball playing composure disagrees with this "all brawns no brains" talk. He isn't there yet but believe me, he is a mix of both Bs as things stand.
Lastly these are not "unnecessary hypes". The boy has earned the attention and watching his interview after the final yesterday shows a lad who isn't allowing the praises get to his head. Chris, be glad. Bassey will only get better we hope.
"The fans helped us so much, screaming for us, cheering for us!"
Scottish Cup Final Man of the Match, Calvin Bassey, pays tribute to the fans who turned out for Rangers at Hampden Park today 👏 pic.twitter.com/CUJb7IDKJb
— Scottish Gas Scottish Cup (@ScottishCup) May 21, 2022
As for Awaziem, it is not like he went bad. It's just club stability he struggles with. Chidozie has always been a rock for us in GWG colors. Awaziem remains the one central defender in the Super Eagles today who can locate anyone on the pitch with any kind of long pass. He and Nwakali were the most Dominant long passers in camp prior to the Afcon and during the Afcon campaign in camp (up until Awaziem's injury which didn't let him play at the Afcon).
The ease with which he executes the long ball is almost godlike and he is also a very assured defender. A fine combo of ruggedness and technical ability.
We must not forget so suddenly how we admitted how much improved he had gotten in Super Eagles colors prior to the Afcon.
The only issue with him is his very weird club career choices lately mostly motivated by money anyway. Leaving Boavista to go on loan to Alanyaspor all because Boavista couldn't take up his wage bill (awaziem was boavista's highest earner/most valuable player in the market but it wasnt even up to what he desired).
Awaziem haven't lived up to expectations club wise despite starring in Ligue 1, La Liga and in Portugal's top flight all because he is yet to find stability. Stability is his issue and at 25 currently, I hope he finally has that sorted this summer.
Thank you TheSuperNerd for the exposition on some of the stories trailing Awaziem's club career. Awaziem is a defender that i rate ahead of some EPL defenders. Before this story by you i thought Awaziem was just one of those skillful players that are just unlucky, now i know better.
Calvin Bassey is in red hot form. He is burgeoning into a very skillful defender, but as things stands, i will pick Awaziem, Balogun and Omeruo ahead of him in central defence, Bassey looks like someone who is open to new ideas. I believe he will improve more with time.
charlesemeka85: simple update wey person post her few minutes ago e reach ur turn u elaborate am sotey come add Italian and Brazilian players wey no concern this thread join
Mr elaborator!
You know it takes a lot of IQ and work to give details and construct sentences the way TheSuperNerd does it. Please lets learn not to downplay people's gifts, abilities and good works.
Mr CharlesEmeka, you can recall vividly that i have praised you openly on this thread, calling you the numero uno harbinger of good reports. I can repost that comment of mine, if you require it.
BascoVanVeli has also being doing a great job, let's not downplay the good work that these guys bring.
TheSuperNerd: Very well explained Meliforme. True football understanding flowing freely from your fingers.
One goal in a major final shouldn't make us forget that Aribo still cannot dictate plays or boss a midfield from a central role. Afterall, he wasn't even deployed as a CM today.
He is always at his peak best when played closer to the box. Today he wasn't even deployed as a false 9. He was Played further upfront. More like a CF. Yes... Aribo played 9 today but interpreted it rather differently.
Just shows you that when Aribo is not burdened with playmaking/Midfield conduction (which he clearly doesn't have the natural knack to do) but focused on playing close to the box to create attack overloads and use his knack for quick 1-2 interchanges and high workrate to bring his mates into the game, and provided that a genuine MF conductor takes up the playmaking part, then WE WILL SEE THE TRUE AND UNDILUTED BEST OF ARIBO.
Joeyzinho: Na this Aribo meliforme say nwakali better pass?
Wonders.
I have always touted that Aribo should be played closer to the 18 yard box. His coaches are just making a discovery that i have since made.
Aribo is a good player but a poor midfielder. He lacks the intelligence and technique required for the central midfielder role. His good touches and control of the ball hides his deficiencies as a midfielder to the eye that is unlearned.
I want you guys to know that as far as the central midfielder role is concerned, the difference between Nwakali and Aribo is wide, with Nwakali having the edge.
A game of this magnitude is supposed to see Aribo in central midfield duties, but no, he was deployed as a false 9, which to me is a revelation and by a good extent his best position.
TheGoodJoe: What is infantile? Opportunity is part of football. If you get a chance and you have it, you can do well. If you do not get the chance, you will take time to blow.
Being English and from Chelsea academy is one of the reasons Tammy broke into Chelsea earlier. That gave him the chance to show his talent. Lampard also gave him that opportunity to show his work.
So, when they are talking of HISTORY, that Tammy has scored 100 goals and Osimhen has not, it is actually infantile to forget about that Opportunity played a part in Tammy having an early start. It is also neglect the fact of Osimhen also battling injuries, coming from a tough background to have the kind of start Tammy had.
This is a fact, and this is football. If you want balanced analysis, you take as much factors as you can. Not jus saying that someone has scored this amount of goals over the years.
TheGoodJoe: What is infantile? Opportunity is part of football. If you get a chance and you have it, you can do well. If you do not get the chance, you will take time to blow.
Being English and from Chelsea academy is one of the reasons Tammy broke into Chelsea earlier. That gave him the chance to show his talent. Lampard also gave him that opportunity to show his work.
So, when they are talking of HISTORY, that Tammy has scored 100 goals and Osimhen has not, it is actually infantile to forget about that Opportunity played a part in Tammy having an early start. It is also neglect the fact of Osimhen also battling injuries, coming from a tough background to have the kind of start Tammy had.
This is a fact, and this is football. If you want balanced analysis, you take as much factors as you can. Not jus saying that someone has scored this amount of goals over the years.
Don't mind those guys. Osimhen could have ended up worse given his upbringing and childhood exposures, but dude has shown to be more than those who are better privileged. They simply do not want to acknowledge that Osimhen is a superstar.
lovewins: Just recently, there was a protest in a federal university in Oyo state. Surprisingly the VC is from the state, the protest was cause he isn't from a particular part of the state.
Can we just stop being hypocritical? Can we stop throwing the racism card at everything especially when we have a semblance of it at home? England has a 3.5% black population, the other part of UK has less than 1% yet it's widely said that you rarely go to a UK hospital and not find a black medical practitioner. If we achieved all this by merit can we just assume we probably don't have a black football coach who can compete at the highest level yet. What exactly have black coaches achieved with African football? Don't we still clamour for foreign coaches? No black nation has gotten to the semi final of the world cup yet, and the highest we've achieved at the world cup as being when a foreign coach was in charge.
Of course I know racism exist, would be insane to deny that, but it's rather hypocritical to scream racism at people who are doing the most to be inclusive. An average Nigerian has a better chance at success in the "racist" UK than he does in his homeland. Can we just look inwards and not throw the race card every chance we get.
Most sport franchise are private entities. Capitalist tendencies trumps personal preferences at the end of the day. It's the reason we have more black players on the NFL and the NBA, they are simply better. While we may have few experiences of racism to make reference to, most employers will hire a competent black coach of they find one. It's all about the money at the end of the day.
BTW, if Kolo Toure is more qualified, he has 52 African countries to prove it with.
Highlights of CSKA Moscow vs Dinamo Moscow. Watch from 3:00.
Ejuke is very quick. Ejuke is an intelligent player. He scored because he placed the ball at the goalkeeper's weaker side, whereas his teammates were shooting to the right of the goalkeeper where the goalkeeper has shown to make more quick and stronger dives.
Nwakali bias be like juju for you ,allow this dude get a club first at least but you won’t ,continue hyping ,maybe you are being paid who knows
My submissions are for the honest eye. I never wanted to reply you nor Komekn, because it is fruitless. Between Nwakali and Aribo who was better at the CM role in the just concluded AFCON tourney.
Aribo is tactically poor for a central midfield role. This is not difficult to see. Our coaches made him look even worse. Watch him struggle in games where the opponent has the tactical advantage, notice players like Ndidi, Awaziem in this same game and you can tell the difference.
ChrisKels: There is nothing special about Aribo, he is just a Scottish league level player, who happens to get some patches of a little above average games here and there. It is our wanton knack for an AM that makes people overhype him in here thinking that would make him come good
Aribo is a good player, no doubt, but we have players who are ahead of him in the role he plays. Believe me when i say this.
Based on his performances in G.W.G, i would have tipped him for the DM role, deputising Ndidi, but his reading of the opponent, ball interception and making vital blocks made me think twice.
daveP: I like what Chuks said Emery told him when he was about to come on
Just run.....
Simple and direct but shows the absolute faith a manager has in his midfielders to make the big difference and against opponents they are not even an underdog in.
Right now, only Iwobi and Ndidi are such midfielders.
It remains this dragging opponents out of position to make things click.
Chuks also said he watched two hours as instructed by the coach.
We definitely have a man management problem in this SE setup. A coach sees a pacy forward and has no such plans to use that to advantage?
All Chuks has yesternight were just two touches of the ball. Naaaaaahhhhhh!!!
We should not give any inept fellow this SE job again and expect Miracles.
A great manager can even replicate what Mou did with porto in 2004. Doesn't need much stars in his team.
Of course having the right personnel matters.
Staying with almost full concentration against Bayern is not an easy feat.
Finally!! An SE player is in the Semis of the UCL after many years of absence.
There is this Super Eagles winger notable for dragging players out of position with trickery. He sat mostly on the bench alongside Iwobl during the last AFCON tournament.
Barryseal: Enrique is Catalonian, why didn't he take a paycut when coaching Barca? The fact remains club football is more rewarding then national team football, for both players and coaches. Top 5 paid coaches at the last world cup where on €2.5-3.5M wages. Half of that gets us a "big name" .
For me, Philip Cocu interests me. Barca schooled, worked with PSV's U19s and graduated a host of the youngester with whom he won the Dutch league with +17 points and still they remain the backbone of the present Dutch national team speaking of Winjaldlum, Depay, De Jong. His PSV team edged out the current rave of the moment Erik Ten Hag's Ajax for his 3rd Dutch championship in 5 season with PSV.
The most important thing is getting in the right person with the passion, drive and hunger to succeed here. Blanc was accused of being racist based on comments he made, Velverde looks like he's retired. I see no fire in his belly anymore since his Barca debacle. I feel Cocu will do well here, we have almost the same profile just like Psv has in Dutch football.
It is not every time we get to see an intelligent and well researched writ like this on this thread. Mr Barryseal, you have the seal of good thinking.
Barryseal: It's not a must he gets paid those crazy wages he was paid to manage Barcelona. The job description for national team and club aren't the same. Clubs play every week, while sometimes in 3 months you get to play once with the national team. Here, he's hired to play games against Mozambique and Lesotho, every now and then he could play 2nd tier friendlies against the likes of Peru and Romania.
Speaking of wages, Luis Enrique used to earn €18M as Barcelona manager. The highest paid in the world but as Spanish national team manager, he earns €1.5M annually. Out of the €1.5,he still got a reduction of 25% because of covid. It's all about negotiation and managers know national team management don't pay as much as club football. So their expectations are whipped accordingly.
Nigeria can hire a world class manager with a budget of $100k a month. If north African clubs can pay their managers $100k monthly, why not Nigeria?
Victor Osimhen is a good player but is not yet a finished article, forget he’s playing for Napoli.
@ the bolded, Ikpeba was implying that the fact that Osimehn is playing for Napoli doesn't mean he is a finished article. In other words, he needs to work more harder. Tha statement was simple and precise...
The denotation from the words "forget he is playing for Napoli" means he is not that good enough to play for Napoli.
We may not always have the same perspective on issues, that is the reason why dissention and criticism is allowed, but criticisms can go overboard, Ikpeba was very wrong when he insinuated that Victor is not yet the player that can play for Napoli. He said "forget he is playing for Napoli". He took a dig at Osimhen.
I wish he had only said Osimhen is not yet a finished article, and ended it there.
Oliseh didn't finish the season with them but he did more than enough to get them promoted. Season was 2017/18 after he left the Super Eagles job in 2016. Remember he left under a cloud of chaos "abandoning" the team just a month to our Egypt ties.
Oliseh led them to be crowned half season Champions after Match day 20. It was widely celebrated throughout club and was their first title since 1995 (Check tweet link below & attached pic at the end)
He was also named Best Manager in Erste Divisie for the first half of the season. He left the job during the early part of the season's second half and a new coach only just rode on the already established efforts of Oliseh to finish second in the Erste divisie.
In conclusion, like I have said before, Oliseh has a sound tactical mind. He's probably the only Nigerian tactician I will bring close to Amunike in my books. Ndubuisi Egbo is there too but these former 2 cut it more tactically for me speaking "Nigerian coaches/Coaches of Nigerian blood" alone.
He knows how to drill a team into a decent force given time and support (judging with his time at Fortuna) but I still have my reservations over his man management skills. That is my only doubt about him.
Tactically he is definitely better than Rohr and Eguavoen combined. No caps.
But I repeat... Man is a walking epitome of management chaos UNLESS he has repented. And one of the reasons why Amunike remains my first choice ONLY among Nigerian coaches/Coaches of Nigerian blood.
If we go foreign, I just want a quality tactician and manager. Period!!!
This is me just further setting the records straight in addition to pointing out a small correction that was needed.
Thank you TheSuperNerd for the correction. You are indeed super.
How many sound tacticians are good man managers. Humans are very difficult to control, this is the reason why high achievers are usually very strict and tough.
The coaches that are excellent man managers, what have they given us.
TheSuperNerd: OGN has their moments when they are wrong, right, half wrong, half right.
I hope this is one of those totally wrong moments. Oliseh ke?? Same man who ended Enyeama's career with us? Same man who disrespected Mikel obi's place in the team??
Heeeiii... Abeg nau. Some never still recover from the WC Ticket loss and Oliseh's previous reign of chaos as our coach.
I know he is kinda tactically sound as he showed that with Fortuna Sittard contributing to their promotion to the Dutch Eredivisie but abeg... Man is a temperamental nuclear bomb. Man management is not his thing and I don't know how much he's improved in that aspect.
I don't trust this Oliseh fellow. Tactically maybe I can a little but as a man manager?? Even Rohr is a better man manager than this man.
Nna why are the people at the helm of affairs bent on extending our chaos like this? Na only we waka come into nadir boulevard? Haba
Oliseh is the kind of coach that will give you results, unfortunately such coaches are not loved, because people find them too strict. No player is bigger than the team, you either play to instructions or court the bench. A big player player like Emmanuel Dennis, might not play under Oliseh, and people are gonna hate Oliseh for that.
NFF might not handle a tactically sound coach, be it a native or foreigner because they will find the personnel difficulty to control.
NFF will also find it difficult to hire a foreign coach that is tactically savvy as Oliseh.
BascoVanVeli: Can you explain why Iheanacho's goal per shot ratio is better than Harry Kane Harry has 12 goals with 99 shots and KC has scored 3 goals with 23 shots.
Komekn, it is time for your morning lessons. I believe you will make it to school today.
Meliforme: Take it or leave it we might lose, i saw that in this game, but this is not what i want. Football is a game of tactics. It is understanding your weaknesses and the opponent's weakness.
I have been talking so much about our poor decision making and poor composition of play. Eguavoen's system made it worse The Ghanaian coach probably knew this and used high pressing to force us into errors. For instance, how can Ekong deliver his long balls when he is under pressure. But i tell you this, this Ghanaian squad are poor tools for high pressing. A sound coach will deal with them.
Sports › Re: "The Super Eagles Thread: The Road To AFCON 2027, 2028 And 2030 World Cup by Meliforme: 7:43pm On May 23, 2022
Harry has 12 goals with 99 shots and KC has scored 3 goals with 23 shots.
