₦airaland Forum

TheGoodJoe:
Dres Mertens was a winger most of his career but Sarri was able to fashion out one of the most devastating forwards in the game today by tinkering with his set-up and giving the small winger a chance upfront. Mertens turned out a revelation banging over 40 goals in over 50 games.

Caging minds with respect to tactics is long over. Attributes is the key.

Sir, Nacho has been tried there over and again and he failed woefully every single time. He is no Mertens not even close by any stretch

TheGoodJoe:

Lee seriously you believe a less mobile person is a better option when we are in an era most teams play with compact midfield and defence? The way out is to have more movement up front. A big man would not perform magic.

The most devastating teams have players who offer movement. Look at Dres Mertens for Napoli. He is not your regular big man.

you are evading the question Sir. tell me one game that he has functioned well as a lone striker up top.


He is no Mertens by the way, not even remotely close

TheGoodJoe:
The coaching crew should get serious and make the right set-up for the team. Nacho should lead the line. He offers more bite, mobility, finishing ability, shooting from range and also has the creativity to drop deep to assist the midfield. It is a no-brainer he should be a starter.

Onazi should never start ahead of Ogu again.

Finito.

Like you seriously want to believe that Nacho should be the lone man forward? When has he ever had a good game in that position?

ChrisKels:
Michael please where are you? Those who called us clueless and haters have finally been treated to a sweet dinner by their Onazi

I just dey here dey check out some very very very funny analysis.

First of all we both saw it since 2017 that Onazi is gone, after this match even Sir Kog45 no fit defend am again. but trust them sha.


Then again, everybody is hailing our second half performance, but bar Iwobi's goal which other chance(notable or not) did we create? England were winning, they didn't need to push yet in that second half they still created the better chances after we scored and for God's sake this is England, you know the same England that we have been saying we will wipe the floor with? yes that sane England and we barely created 3 chances of note and people are still making reference to the Argentina friendly when we have been so poor recently.


Our main problem now is Mikel. naturally he doesn't have enough energy to function as an AMF self, but to make matters worse the Chinese league has been on for a while, I doubt he has had enough time to rest since he started all his team's recent matches, that's like 10 games at least in the last few weeks and yet we all know that without Mikel our team is...well Panama wearing a fanciful green jersey and the end point is that we will be destroyed. Ndidi is not yet training with the full squad, I don't know when he will get match fit but let's just watch. The main problem is that the Chinese league's calendar has affected Mikel and it will affect our team, that AMF role will be too stressful for him now and that's when we will see just how good our team is.


coming down to the manager, I'd bet thousands that Onazi would still start our matches, in fact make that a few hundred thousands. The coach is just a man manager, it works for Zidane because he has a lot of top quality players but when your forward players are either wingbacks in the clubs or they have a permanent quarter on the bench of a midtable team then being just a manager isn't going to cut it.


Finally to address those calling for Ogu to becoming a starter, you don't change your midfield most especially like that. No matter how impressive Saul is in training and even friendlies now and even if Iniesta starts playing like an old lady he will still start, that's one area of the pitch where you don't just change players because they come in as subs and perform well. Ogu may not even make it to Russia and I won't be surprised I mean Kayode was left at home for a Lokosa who had no chance whatsoever. I mean based on what Ighalo did today wouldn't Lokosa at least be a better choice? in fact I have tire

TheGoodJoe:
As I said before, we can not fold our arms and wait for the foreign clubs to do it all for us. We need to take steps like we did in the Atletico Madrid game to promote our own. Inviting Nwakali Kelechi to camp and him proving himself in the Super Eagles will attract clubs and also playing time in a more formidable team.

Yeah, like that has helped Oshimen get a better club or even get proper minutes in a relegation threatened club. Most times we wear glasses blinded by sentiments when we start analysing these our young players, if you are not good enough to make it into a top club then you do not deserve to be given a chance. Iheanacho made it into Man City's team without any external help, only a fool would say he didn't eventually merit his call up. The older Nwakali too was getting great reviews from coaches everywhere without getting called up, no national team influence there. For the junior Nwakali to still need the national team as a stepping stone then maybe we should look closer.


If Masch wakes up to realise that he will be playing against Nwakali as the 10 then trust me he would have a nice, happy nap on that match day and even if he wakes up 10minutes to the game he would still pocket him

Mujtahida:
You are making the point for me with the Iheanacho/Puel yarns. I don't want to mention a popular moniker here who constantly decried the cameos Iheanacho was getting as no opportunity. Mikeal2 insisted the cameos were good enough and I remember we came down hard on him.

And the bolded shows you either don't understand me or you deliberately trying to twist my points and it's best I don't go on cos in every post I've endeavoured to stress that I am even indifferent to Kayode and did condemn this constant wailing. So I'm surprised you'd say the bolded. Maybe we are talking about two different things here.

It's not about Kayode. It's about forgiveness, it's about contributors here. Take away Kayode, take away Iheanacho and my point remains: It's about those who are biased calling out another man for being biased.

Selective amnesia Sir

safarigirl:
when did Kayode suffer injury?

People that have sense already told forgiveness why Kelechi is in the list as opposed to Kayode, but some people no free hear word

Statistically, Niangollan had a better season than others in the Belgian team, he dey list? Statistically, Icardi also had a better season than others in the Argentine team, he dey list?

So, what exceptional thing did Kayode do that we will not hear word on this thread?

OK
Larry had an injury, I am certain about that and if you followed that argument then I am sure forgiveness gave the link at some point so either you didn't follow the conversation or its just selective amnesia



forgiveness was just giving reasons why Larry deserved an invite just like someone can also give reasons why Radja should be. invited

safarigirl:
ehen, let me correct the one I can correct

Forgiveness listed Simy and Iheanacho's stats, from a FULL season, and compared it to Kayode's stats from HALF the season and concluded, quite CUNNINGLY, that Kayode deserved a call up.

Selective amnesia issa bastard

no offence oh but you are the one who is having selective amnesia.


At some point forgiveness did point out that Kayode had a better first half of the season than Iheanacho although both got roughly the same minutes on the pitch. How many goals did Iheanacho score in the first half of the season and what changes would it have made to the stats he listed? if anything it would have made it worse because it would have reduced his goals per minute ratio lower than the poor level he managed in the second half .


May I recommend that you reduce your alcohol intake if any, eat more protein and get one or two bottles for multivitamins, it really helps with amnesia

Mujtahida:
Yes everybody has their opinion but one thing I know about forgiveness is that as much as possible he sticks with the data and statistics.

You said Nwakali is not a flop. Forgiveness says he's a flop. Somehow yours is an opinion but forgiveness'is tribalism.
Haba. This is precisely what forgiveness fights against - this unbalanced way of looking at things, this deliberate blind siding some of us indulge in. When he calls us out to it, instead of tackling him, we scream 'tribalist, tribalist'
I myself in my exasperation with his tangy points once called him a tribalist but I don't think he's a tribalist. He is subtle and you need to be careful in reading him.

the talk get as e be.

OK statistically Kayode had a better season than some of the players we invited so what's wrong with forgiveness pointing to that as a credible reason for his call up to the national team?

Then some will say that national team form is all that matters but how many opportunities has he had to hut form for the national team?

On the other hand, Iheanacho's had a bad season but then we give excuses like no preseason, injury and lack of game time ( all of which Kayode suffered at some point as well) and if forgiveness uses the same logic for Larry he is a tribalist. It used to be funny now it isn't anymore but then that's why this country is in a mess. see me now I have to function twice as normal because JOHESU don go strike, keeping me occupied much more than usual, no love in this country

andrew444:
Good point.

Humility pleaded for nwakali inclusion and nobody will call him a tribalist ask me why? Because you will not see humility downgrade others players and bring up his own just as forgiveness always do.

I defended nwakali when forgiveness call him a flop and i am still the same person that says nwakali doesnt deserve a spot still after the world cup,I will not praise mr A and bring down Mr B.

Everybody has their own opinion.

I want to understand what you mean by bringing down other players.


when the argument started, forgiveness listed the stats behind Iheanacho's season as well as that of Kayode and Simi Nwankwo and concluded quite intelligently that Kayode deserved a call up. Then the argument turned into Kayode not being better than any other player on the list and since anything on this thread that questions Iheanacho's abilities is a hate speech he was immediately called a hater forgetting the fact that he actually also argued against Simi's call up as well. statistically he is correct Kayode did well. so please do tell me how he is bringing down other players

Certitude:
I'll like to know what sir Michael have to say.

we have not achieved anything. for now I am just following the thread, I try to engage in one or two conversations with people I know can actually talk like adults

but when the international season starts fully we will come back

andrew444:
Shehu is a bursaspor player in turkey even moussa sow of Senegal is there and he is making the Senegal squad,naija no get keeper oo abi u no dey watch ball ? Oya tell me naija keeper wey dey for the top 7 league in Europe none.

For you to say musa played for U23 then you are he biggest joker,the last time I check musa played 9 Russia premier league games and scored 5 goals ,Na so u take hate musa reach ?

you are not getting the drift. Wasn't Shehu in Cyprus when he was called up? Wasn't Musa playing U23 football yet he kept on making the list? That's my point

andrew444:
Etebo is lucky to be in the super eagles because if I am super eagles coach I will not call a player from a below average Portugal team like fierense

but you'd rather call up Shehu who plays in Cyprus, Uzoho who plays in division three, Ahmed Musa who plays for an U23 side, you see the double standards?

andrew444:
I don't rate onazi much but I have seen his impact in the eagles jersey a lot,still finding etebo impact and if he proves me wrong I will eat my words

Vicmo is a star no matter what you say nobody will agree with you,he looses the ball but he score vital goal right ? Common give him some credit

you can only stake your claim if you are given the oppurtunity to, Etebo hasn't had that at all, or at least his has been...tending towards zero. The games that Onazi didn't play hasn't exactly been bad games for us, his impact was felt in 2013 and 2014.


I am trying to understanding the relationship between VicMo loses the ball often and VicMo isn't a star player or VicMo doesn't score vital goals? Did I ever say that? He loses the ball more often than Etebo does, that's the end of the conversation, no carry vital goals enter for dispossession.

tbaba1234:
Croatia has been very average in their warm-up games even with these players.

When it mattered, they destroyed Greece, not some Lithuania(with all due respect to them). Forget warm ups, the real thing starts when the real thing starts

charlesemeka85:
and who was amokachi insinuating to be a coach and an agent as well? STEPHEN OKECHUKWU KESHI. that man nearly destroyed our apex team just because of his selfishness.

you see you do not even know the full story and here you are saying rubbish.


Ideye moved to a new club sometime between 2013 and 2014, somehow he didn't pay his agent his own share of the transfer fee(selfishness). Then when it was time to release the list, the agent contacted Keshi and pointed out what happened, after which Keshi told Ideye to pay up his agent or lose his spot, Ideye didn't pay his agent what he was rightly owing him and he lost his spot, to me that is absolutely fair and balanced. If you have a football competition or quiz competition when I was in the university, if you do not pay your school fees you are out, no matter how good you are and that was what Keshi did, blame here should go to Ideye

TheGoodJoe:
Enjoy some exhibition from Kovacic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcF9C_Rtr_c

I like this guy

andrew444:
Etebo knows how to loose the ball,he is lucky to be in the super eagles not that he is a bad player but I can't count on him in the starting line up

he sure as hell doesn't lose the ball more than VicMo or Onazi

charlesemeka85:
oga no matter how you paint etebo he is just an ok player nothing much. his greatest assets are his strength to cover grounds and his pace.

Is Onazi a worldclass superstar? You are sounding as if we have superstars in every department hence an ok player isn't needed

Icon79:
So let me put that question back to you: how do you define creativity in soccer?

Oghenekaro Etebo is a hardworking box to box midfielder but creativity isn't one of his strong points, OK? If you wanna talk about creativity in this current SE team then look at John Obi Mikel, Alex Iwobi, Victor Moses (when he's not dribbling too much), Kelechi Iheanacho, and even Joel Obi.


O pari

All these players you called out have eyes for a killer pass(I do not know what VicMo is doing there though) but Etebo is the kinda guy who will drive at the defence with full force, the kinda guy who will arive late, behind the striker and put the ball into the back of the net, the kinda guy that will outpace his marker and do something reasonable with his final ball,it beats me that you do not understand the terms 'creative run' and 'creative drive'. Alli has absolutely zero(or atleats close to zero) creative pass ability but he is creative with his runs, they all count. I say again, based on all round creativity, no other midfielder in our starting XI comes close to Etebo bar Mikel

safarigirl:
It's not like our World Cup hopes would receive a blow if he doesn't make the team.

He is only important on paper IMO

He is not our most creative midfielder, what has he ever created for us? Does he have any assist? Hardworking? If running up and down the pitch is hardworking, then Musa is our most hardworking forward

Etebo is overrated. He is average in the GwG, I don't care what he does in La Liga

is it that you have forgotten his near MoM performance against Algeria? Against SA he was even better than Ndidi and factually everybody was bad on the day, in the return leg against Algeria he may have had a bad game, not sure there is any player who has never had one.

What is your definition of creativity anyways? You are narrowing down creativity to only mean 'creative passes', we also have creative runs(Etebo's strong point if you watched that Olympic games and the qualifiers. We also have creative runs oh, which Etebo is also good at. So he is creative, not Mikel type creative but definetly more creative than anyother midfielder we have in the first team, by that I mean Ndidi and/or Onazi

Martz101:
Etebo can't start, his not even next in line after Onazi, john Ogu is ahead of him, i really can't remember etebo performing well in our midfield, an etebo may perform better in an Argentina game but not Croatia

but he had an extraordinary game against Algeria in midfield

PDPGuy:
82kg is no biggie. I weighed that much when I was 22.

did you use to train everyday back then?

Icon4s:
Iheanacho is taller than Iwobi? Doesn't look so on the pitch.

Even weighs more than Iwobi. Hmm, can Iheanacho be weighing 82kg? For a 21 years old footballer?
I hope those figures are correct.

they are not correct. Who scored usually gets it all mixed up, they have Neymar at the same height as Kroos abi even taller. 185 is Ronaldo's height

Icon4s:
You remind me of the strikers we paraded at that Confed Cup: Brown Ideye, Anthony Ujah and Gambo Mohammed. Nigeria scored a total of 7 goals in the tournament. But guess what? None came from the so called strikers.

our strikers then were piss poor. I remember against Tahiti there was a time Ujah was sent clean through on goal and somehow he fell down, I thought that was going to be the worst miss of the match until Ideye started doing his own. Oduamadi was scoring far tougher chances. Since that match na only Musa wey I don see wey dey fall for ground in front of keeper

charlesemeka85:
and which confed cup are you talking about? the one the team was only able to beat Tahiti but conceded? the one the likes of Uruguay and Spain taught us footballing lessons by outsmarting keshi tactically? are we celebrating mikel's performance at the confed cup or mourning the teams dismal performance? imagine we went a goal ahead against Uruguay but lost, keshi played an attacking style of football against a Spanish team that was world champions then and got battered seriously . taking lowly Togo was a milestone he achieved that crashed on him because of his dubious ways that almost destroyed the harmony of the team before he was axed if not i see no reason a football federation will sack a coach who qualified their team to its first ever world cup. i never said we were outplayed against the CIV but was the team fortune smiled on by emerging victorious. mikel and onazi played the game of their lives that faithful day and the same goes to omeruo and oboabona. its high time you accept the fact that rohr is doing something great with this young team and pray for them to have a successful outing in Russia than hoping he fails so that you and your likes will be screaming on high heavens for him to be relieved of his duties

How you go just dey dey yarn rubbish?

Against CIV we should have won 3-0, there was a chance that Emenike missed before he even scored that goal, and the goal that CIV scored was because of a dive by Drogba, do watch the highlights again. Our defence hardly even had anything to do, in fact they had a far tougher game against Burkina Faso


How exactly were we poor at the Confed cup? Against Tahiti we created enough chances to score atleast 10goals, is it Keshi's fault that the strikers on the day(Ujah and co) couldn't score? Or is it also Keshi's fault that most of our regulars were injured going to that tournament? I believe we missed like 3-4 core players in that tournament yet we played very well, now we lose 3 players and we are mince meat for ordinary SA and Serbia. Uruguay were eventual WC semifinalists yet they didn't outplay us. Then in the game against Spain, we were no longer going to qualify, do you still come to park the bus? You come out and play football since you have nothing to lose, that is the basic of knockout football.


I don't understand your problem exactly. Is it that Keshi did not qualify Togo? There is also another instance of how good Keshi is, in one Afcon like that he took Mali and they came back from 4 goals down at halftime to tie 4 all with the hosts Angola, we couldn't even come back from two goals down against SA in a competitive game, that says a lot.

Nobody is arguing against what Rohr is doing but saying that Keshi is better, way better than Rohr TACTICALLY is clear for even the blind to see

Lucque:
I feel he is just making suggestions, it doesn't hurt to do dat.
On the other hand, do u have a beta alternative that could work effectively...? If so let's hear it

I am not actually the one asking for the SE to turn into a breeding ground for 'potentials'. the financial stress is too much

Icon4s:
Not much changed but Keshi's team was better of in the keeping of possession.

Keshi's team kept possession and hit you when and where you don't expect.

Rohr's team are always too quick to hit the ball forward even when the man up front is not in the best position to get the ball. Too many over hit balls. Thank God there is Mikel in that team we for no dey see goal score. How many goals have we scored in games where Mikel did not feature?

and that is why I keep on hammering that without Mikel Rohr does not have a team. If it could be possible to combine Keshi's tactical prowess and Rohr's managerial skills then we would have gotten to the semifinal of that 2014 world cup easily. Let's look at what Rohr brings though

TheGoodJoe:
I have written an epistle on it and that is from me reasoning. I say we make the team B a serious affair, play quality friendly matches building the team B and also holding series of camps with the team B until we have a formidable young squad to go with the Super Eagles.

This will do more to the development of our other potential quality players and give them the necessary exposure they need. There are other approaches but the worst is folding our arms.

do you think that organising camps are as easy as they come? Those boys coming to camp you will pay them, pay their hotel dues and transport fares and pay for the friendly games, you also pay for the stadia they will use and that is the viable option you have in mind? we already have a hard time paying our coaches or even developing the other national teams and you are asking for this extra burden? it does not work that way

TheGoodJoe:
How does do more mean we should send coaches to all players? Na wa. Sometimes the talk here can go off point. I just gave an example of how Rohr is taking extra steps than depending on the clubs. I never and it is never the only way.

And I have been asking you since day1 to give another example of the 'special way' we can groom the players and you have never said anything else except sending coaches to them. So I ask again what other way can that be achieved?

safarigirl:
we cannot say what his body may or may not be accustomed to. People have different systems, so, they heal differently.

we can make intelligent assumptions based on the normal stuffs that happen in sports therapy. Ndidi is Ndidi does not mean he is way different from everyother person

tbaba1234:
Ndidi is not on crutches... Did you not see him at the leicester awards.. He was walking. He will be administered pain killers to numb the pain.

He will just avoid difficult tasks and heavy lifting.

you start using crutches after the surgery