₦airaland Forum

TheLoneCitizen:
Just share the best of Nwakali, brother. No hate, but not a fan of the overhype.

Nwakali saved alcorcon from relegation last season. In fact, he got the award of player of the month for his club. He was their best player and he was their midfield general. The Spanish site talked about this. I will post the link when I'm less busy.
It was because of this that huesca re called him and he now plays regularly for them

Kelechi nwakali is developing nicely in SD huesca and the Spanish second division. I saw his last match and he played well. If he continues like this for a year or two he will make good progress.
The former coach of Watford is his new coach in SD huesca.
He is progressing.
Anyway I hope ished he remained at alcorcon as he was their saviour there but then he is making a lot of progress in SD huesca. As per this afcon I think he should be left alone to develop his career in SD huesca but he should be in contention for the world cup squad.
African home grown talent need a place to develop when they get to Europe and the Spanish second division is a perfect place for him.

12large1:
Musa played mostly as a striker for cska in his prime, while ejuke played as a winger. Nontheless, ejuke still has to produce (goals or assist) in order to reach musa status. Dribble dribble without end product isn’t it

[url]https://www.goal.com/en-ng/news/ahmed-musa-where-next-after-west-bromwich-albion-snub/vdb3k21fu87y1lal52m0yajd0

[/url]
Solace Chukwu on goal.com talked about Ahmed Musas limitations in an article
here is a quotation from him

"Musa is rapid still, but has never had the close control, associative play or decision-making to be a consistent threat at a high level when played wide"

Note that these same issues are mentioned which are
1. His close control
2. Decision making
3. Associative play: which is his awareness of his team mates postion on the field of play in relation to his own and his ability to make telling passes to them.

Here is another quotation on why he did not succeed in the premier league

"Sure, his stint in the Premier League did not go so well, but there will be no one more keenly aware of his limitations as a player than the man himself. He quite simply was not good enough to make a mark in that league, and it showed on the handful of occasions he did pull on Leicester blue"

So you see, Musa has limitations to his game he did not work on and with his loss of speed and old age, it has caught up with him.
Against South Africa in the nations cup, his decision making was a problem again.
Chidera Ejuke is tactically and technically better in many aspects of the game and is a finner footballer.

charlesemeka85:
Tim akinola tipped to make the leap to arsenals first team. Aggressive,strong,fast and skillful box to box midfielder, very similar to Lille’s renato Sanchez. Rumour has it that he wants to rep Nigeria instead of England

One for the future

Ok let us start the talk again for the sake of it.
Who is better between Tim akinola and alhassan Yusuf of Royal Antwerp.

IDENNAA:
I guess Nwakali stopped being Nigerian. Na dem sabi

At least it's better than having Moses Simon, Ahmed Musa, onuachu and shehu Abdullah I in the team. At least they will bring value to the team.
I pray it works. Rohr is confused and so if he does something right by adding quality to our midfield and wings let us be happy.
If ademola lookman keeps Ahmed Musa out if the team and ejaria can add creativity to our midfield I will be happy.
At least it will be an improvement. Although it's funny waiting for their switch before quality can be added to the team when other home grown talent is there.
But Rohr is so dumb that taking this route could be the only way out.

Embell:
Both of them are not better than Onuachu and Moses even at club level, particularly this season, not to talk of in SE.

This is the problem. At national team level there are better players. Club form does not transform to the national team every time. This is because if style of play. Onuachu fits a particular style of play we don't have in the national team and Simon switches off when playing for us.
We need players who play well for us and not just their club. They are different things. Some players simply don't fit into certain formations or play well in certain teams and Moses Simon and onuachu don't fit into our teams right now.
Look, if you study maurinho and guardiola well, they only go for players that fits into their style of play and not necessarily the best players. Club form is good but overrated. Samuel kalu seems to fit into our national team than Moses simon. Don't get carried away with club form. Club form only matters if you can translate it into the national team

Rohr will start our match with Moses Simon and Ahmed Musa and if iwobi gets injured he will use iheanacho as our creative midfielder.
Liberia and those Small teams will fustrate him and we might draw or win by luck.
Our coach is our greatest problem

Tolulopefinest:
E don land

Ahmed Musa, onuachu and Moses Simon needs to get out of the team immediately. They have little or nothing to offer. Emmanuel Dennis, nwakaeme, awoniyi, onyekuru etc should take their place. We also need more options in midfield. With covid u can have more than a 23 man squad. Mr rohr really needs help.
Samuel kalu is of course better than Moses Simon. He is better when playing for Nigeria.
Again our coach needs help. Salisu Yusuf should please help him

elyte89:
15matches!... We DT hardly organize friendlies, so DT means we would av to depend on dem for almost 5years

Ok we can organize 2 friendlies next year and try them out. Amaju pinick experiment should have been with Samson tijani set. Ok 15 is too much but we can play a friendly with 7 members of our recent u20 and under17 teams. There is some serious talent to be harvested from the hat set. I mean amoo, oladoye, Samson tijani, nnamdi ofirboh etc

andrewbaba44:
Our youth team must be integrated into the national team immediately?

It can’t be everyone at the youth teams nah ,we aren’t lacking good players in Europe like Zambia ,so even if the youth player is not doing well for his club or play for a good club the player should be integrated into the eagles immediately ?

At least the best 5 players. We should try them out in friendlies and even in a few matches. Let us give them that chance. That will reduce the rate at which they dissapear and into obscurity

Danielnino00:
I was quite impressed with that Mwepu guy yesterday... He was so full of energy, and quite intelligent on the ball..The goal is scored is definitely contender for goal of the season... These 3 players; Daka, Mwepu and Sakala were part of that Zambia u-20 class of 2017, and were integrated into their national team almost immediately...It's now paying off... They have moved to better teams, and getting a good coach for the Zambian national team looks to me like what's left for them to shine at international stage...

U see our youth teams must be integrated into the national team immediately and given 15 matches to prove themselves and market themselves to big clubs. But nff is too confused to understand this. Why win the u17 5 times and have their talents wasted. I say let us integrate them first and see what happens

Joebie:
What you do at the club level only shows POTENTIAL of what you can do at the national level. Many of these players that are performing in Europe etc did not hit the ground running immediately there, it took the right coach, the right tactical set up, the right teammates to some extent for them to start performing. Enter the national team, you also need a good coach to see the POTENTIAL, and study why the players are excelling at the club level. Compare that to what he has at his disposal and try to fashion out a good formula that will utilise the strengths of the players before their success at club football can translate to national team football. And this can take time.

This explains why in the past we have had players who were never great at club football but were one of the best when they play in the national team. It is the same reason why you have players that are banging in Europe but you start to scratch your head why they cannot show similar prowess in the national team. my friends, Rohr has been our coach for over 5 years now. He has broken the record of the longest serving coach in Super Eagles history if I am not mistaking. I saw the signs long that the coach could not take us forward.

This is not the time for this player vs that player. We cannot afford to miss the next WC. We have to do anything possible. Just because Ighalo now plays in Saudi Arabia does not necessarily mean he has lost form and he is worse than those playing in Germany etc. it is not necessarily a player comparison thing. It is a matter of if we TRUST our coach to make new additions to the team today that will immediately translate to success? I see us moving to the next round of qualification, but I will repeat again the next round will be very tricky. This is not the time for sentiments or playing player preference.

Nothing is guaranteed. But I will rather TRUST a guy who is still competitive and who has been there, done that most recently to make a sudden impact than another performing player who may need a series of games to show his potential in the national team. If we no qualify for world cup, na for here wailings go plenty. After qualification, dump Ighalo, and I don't care. But nothing is guaranteed either way. The Ighalo way is a reasonable gamble based on our prevailing circumstances.

You have a point. Onuachu and moses simon are good examples of players who do well
in Europe but look horrible in the national team.
Actually, a players perfomance depends on many things.
In the history of Nigerian football we have had players who do not do well
in Europe but do well in the national team.
Ben iroha did not have a good career in Europe but was fantastic for Nigeria
i remember his goal against ivory coast in afcon 94.
clubs bench players for tactical reasons and not just the players ability

WHY NIGERIAN PLAYERS STRUGGLE IN EUROPE

Terem Moffi interview, why Nigerian layers struggle in euroPE

"The way of conceiving football in Nigeria is very different from what one sees in Europe. There, when you learn the basics, you are already 16 or 17 years old, in Europe, we do that from an early age, at 6 or 7 years old. In Nigeria, we form a group and we play football, it’s that simple (laughs). Do you understand what I mean? That was really it, you come, you play football and around 16 or 17, you barely start to learn the basics. You have to be really talented and good to catch up and assimilate the technical, tactical and physical basics quickly".

This is a quote from Terem Moffi in an interview. I mean with what he says, an 11 year old boy born
in Europe has more knowledge of footballing tactics than a 17 year old boy.
Nigerian or African players go to Europe and struggle because there is a 7 year old gap in their footballing education

I beleive we have to improve on our coaching in order to produce our own messi and de bruynes
There should be a strong emphasis on coaching. In fact, i think we need a coaching revelation from grassroots.
Our football academies must devote more resources to coaching.
One good coach can produce 15 good players and vice versa.
We seem not to take coaching seriously from an early age

TheSuperNerd:
This is so because it is the thinking of an average football fan. Goals only.

Every Striker is rated by how many goals he scores because that is what the average fan world wide looks at. Nothing more. And it is parrly because of average fans (who dominate the football audience) that Osimhen knows he has to keep scoring. And goals he will keep getting but like I have always said... he is a striker whose qualities transcend "Goals only".


An average fan is only concerned about the superficial stats. But when one is concerned about the deeper details of the beautiful game, he will always look beyond the superficial.

We all saw Osimhen on Thursday drop another Masterclass Performance. They won 3-0. Did he score a single goal?? No. Did the stats say he recorded any assists? No.

If anyone didn't see that game, they will conclude that ohhhh Osimhen must have had a shitty game because he didn't "contribute" to their win. That's how an average football fan thinks. Scorelines-only... Goals-Only.... results-only.


But those who saw the game know beyond this superficial report and can tell you authoritatively that Osimhen was Napoli's MOTM and their best player again. Winning two penalties (which don't count as assists on many sites) and delivering AGAIN a performance worthy of a true #9.

You see, elyte... results only doesn't say the whole story.

So which are you? An Average football fan or an analyst/fan who wants to know beyond the superficial.

Choice is yours.

U don't understand why winning a penalty that was converted does not count as an assist. I mean, that is ignorant on part of most sites. I started taking most sites less seriously when I noticed this trend. You do not have to be an expert to know that winning a penalty is important. Anyone knows that talk less of winning 2 penalties. Some sites can be funny. Winning a penalty should count as chance created to any sensible human being

andrewbaba44:
One of the players they misjudged here ,very underrated ,after 1 game for the eagles peeps here started calling him flop ,some of them later blamed rohr after they saw they judged him wrongly ,some of them said he is old

Now if you ask those people who called him flop to mention current super eagles players who where good at their debut they won’t mention up to 10

Nwakaeme is the alejandro Gomez of naija football ,dude is pure class

Once you are 30 my brothers here won’t rate you ,but once you are at your early 20s you are the best thing after goat meat pepper soup ,those players on their early 20s now will surely reach their 30s one day .

Rohr is simply unintelligent and confused. Our best wingers are Samuel Kalu, Anthony Nwakaeme, Samuel Chukwueze, Emmanuel Dennis,
Ejuke but he want to stick with Ahmed Musa and Moses Simon. the two of them will play badly and Rohr will claim he lacks good players.
Our so called problem with bad wingers is a product of his immagination and stupidity.

Then the issue of rating a player by his league has serious limitations.
Someone like nwakaeme is better than many wingers we have.
At the end of the day, he might be a better player for Nigeria than moses simon.
Even players like Adegbenro, Amoo etc might be better than some top 5 league players.
playing in a top 5 league is a question of opportunity and not necessarily been better.
Yekini was one of the best strikers for nigeria and in Africa while playing in the portuguese second division.
ROHR BADLY NEEDS HELp

FIFApresident1:
Nigerian football is now a Joke, we now see a player playing somewhere in naples (Europa league) not Madrid, not Chelsea not Liverpool or Real madrid... as our God... Just the way Kenyans view Victor Wanyanma.... hahaha.

Like Kenya like Nigeria...


I wonder how senegalese (s) would be feeling knowing that they have at least 1 world class in every football departments, be it Goal keeping, Defence, Midfield and Forward.... They have at least one world class.... A country of just 16 million people.

Senegal have not won the nation's cup before with all their star players.
Akinkunmi amoo and some of our youngsters will get to that level in a couple of years. In fact Sadiq Umar and taiwo awoniyi are in for big transfers soon. This thing is about time and opportunity and the time for our players will come.
Big club issue is overrated. It's just time and opportunity.
In fact Samson tijani might get there. Red bull produces world class players.
And so what about all that.
Senegal can't even win Olympics or a junior tournament.
They are overrated abeg

chrisooblog:
We don't have AMs that is the brutal truth. How many african AMs do you know at the moment that play for top clubs?

Based on eye test Amoo is obviously gifted. Let him come and be assessed. Nobody is saying we should just dash him the AM position in the starting XI. Boy is a potential solution to the SE creative problems.

Besides, no one knows tomorrow. He might just be a big player tommorow. From all indications he will make it. The Scandinavian leagues are like red bull Salzburg. They develop talent s and sell them to top 10 leagues of Europe. That in fact hammarbys plan for him and Ibrahimovic is really excited about him.
He is one for the future. I'll say one of the few false 9 to come out of Nigeria.
I have said it before and I'm saying it again. Akinkunmi amoo is a false 9 and this is unique

Farzat:
Do we actually have problem in attacking department? What effort has Rhor made in the AM position where we have issues? How many African teams has the quality of strikers we have in SE? Taking a wrong medication can only worsen a health situation.

We need Mikel and Victor Moses more than we need ighali. In fact the fact that nnamdi ofirboh, nwakali, alhassan Yusuf etc who are natural midfielder s should play for us should be the major thing and not ighalo.
We need to beg Mikel obi badly.
As per Victor Moses at least Emmanuel Dennis, onyekuru and chidera ejuke are viable options but we need Mikel obi badly

TFLASHOGEE:
he never totally abandoned them like you claimed, you can't tell me you didn't know about the crises rocking the glass house then and pinnick him self hasn't stamp his foot in nff then because the giwa's case was still hanging on his neck, even at that he still travel to Chile to do the best he can to support the team. And the success today as something to do with him because he has done some commendable stuff to make the current super eagle better and appealing to some extent.

It was during amaju Pinicks tenure that the Olympic football team was abandoned. Mikel obi had to foot the bills.
Amaju pinick is a fraud

Yeah just thought of it. Mike enemalo former director of football in Chelsea should be Nigerias next coach.
He has everything. A Nigerian who understands our football with European exposure and experience. Finide can be his assistant and will be in charge of the home based and u23.
I think it will work

andrewbaba44:
Yes nah

Moses Simon cannot Cross or can dribble past any defender

Chukwueze is not good in crossing but can dribble past defenders with his pace and can cause problems that will lead to goal and can score also at some point

Ejuke can dribble and looks so promising

Ahmed musa totally offers nothing going forward ,but they want onuachu to be scoring with this little fame game

Osimhen is the first choice striker and he is doing well ,iheanacho is also good there ,they should leave onuachu as he will always make impact from the bench

Forget club form Samuel kalu is one of our best wingers. As per onuachu we don't need him. His style of play does not work for us. Awoniyi will do better than him for us. Onuachu will slow down our game and confuse us. Most of our good wingers love low ground crosses into the box 18 and he cannot do anything with the ball at his feet.
We have 5 strikers who are waiting. I keep repeating it Sadiq Umar is badly underrated and we should asses him. Imagine 17 assists a season and this season he already has 5 assists. We need a creative forward.

andrewbaba44:
Not everytime goals can be used to judge strikers in the Nigerian sentimental dictionary

People just love Kanu naturally and that’s all ,and don’t forget about the Olympic 96 win ,so Kanu is loved

if osimhen is not scoring goals he won’t be celebrated

Kanu is a creative layer that is all. He had many assists and preassists for Nigeria.
I remember his hattrick of assists against Tunisia in 2000 and his assist in afcon 2004 against Camerroon.
He also had many instances where he broke down a defense somebody took a shot at goal, the goalkeeer
saved it and someone else scored from the rebound.
A foolish stat will give the assist to the person that took the shot and not Kanu that broke the
defence with a defence splitting pass.
Kanu was the basis of our wins a lot of times.
Most footballing stats can be foolish and dumb and sometimes outright wrong in the hands of a novice

Subzero047:
If a striker guarantees you 49 goals in 49 games there would be no reason for you to prefer another striker with lesser numbers all every coach cares about is winning so what you are talking is okoto

Scoring goals is a matter of formation.
Some strikers can only play in a 2 man striker formation while others can play as a lone striker
and also in a 2 man striker formation.
Some strikers press from the front and bring creativity and mobility to their game.
In fact, some strikers will simply be useless with some formations.
The same striker scoring goals in a 2 striker formation
will be useless when told to play as a lone striker.
Drogba was not neccesarily the best player around who could play for chelsea
but he was the one best suited as a lone striker in Maurinho formation.
A lot of better strikers struggled with that formation.
Even schevchenco, crespo etc when they came to Chelsea during drogbas time.
So football is not straight forward.
Someone like Sadiq Umar could be preffered when he make it to the top division because
he brings creativity, mobility, agression etc to his game and can also play as a lone striker
and since he is creative he can play as an inside left or inverted winger.
Sadiq Umar once had 17 assists in a season and that is something
A team without creative midfielders will need a creative forward and not just a box 18 forward
Life is not so simple.
in fact we all know shevchencko was once world player of the year but he struggled at chelsea for tactical reasons.

andrewbaba44:
As seen at goal.com

The problem is that the Western Media and a lot of football personalities
are making noise about Victor Osimhen.
The noise about Osimhen in the western media (particularly Italy) is more than
that of us here in nairaland.
At first i thought he was just a good player that should remain
in lille for some years and develop but then napoli
and then this........
maybe real madrid, bayern or the Africas first 100 million striker
The Europeans rate him higher than we do and that is what people on this site dont
understand

zoboizee:
Amoo is not a better talent than Adeyemi. He is not even as good as Adeyemi. That Adeyemi is an icon in the nearest future. He uses both feet, even though he's left footed. He's faster, more skillful & a more technically balanced player.

First of all amoo is more of a false 9 or play maker or attacking midfielder like firmino. Karim adeyemi is a pure wing forward

Secondly adeyemi is not better. He is just better advertised. Time will prove me right. Amoo is a homegrown talent so it will take longer to recognize him but amoo is more creative, versatile and skillful.
I know him personally as my friend s in ibadan grew up with him and call me aburo wa

Kog45:
Oga Daniel then what do you have to say about Austin Okocha and Kanu Nwankwo picking matches to play during 2006 WC qualifications.

Austin Okocha 14 years 73 appearances

Victor Moses 7 years 37 appearances

...mathematically by ratio they have the same appearances based on years spent with eagles

This is the reason i believe we should have at least 2 players for each position.
This will make the team stronger and not too dependent on a few players and create
competition in the team.
Also, we will not loose out at vital momments due to injuries, poor form or withdrawals.
This is why i dont ignore any good player out there.
Football is funny and anything may happen at anytime

12large1:
Victor Moses must return back to super eagles. Every country has its best and most experienced players, playing for their country and ours shouldn’t be any different

What we lost in Moses we have in Anthony nwakaeme but Rohr is seriously blind and a lot of people in this forum don't rate him. It's quite funny

Mujtahida:
Watching Euro 2020, I realized that the quality of European football is stellar while ours is drab. The solution is not to water down the WC just so African countries or any other low quality football countries can catch up. Deep investments in football needs to be done.

African leagues can attract Arab and Chinese investors. The owners of man city can decide to invest in an African club.
Amaju pinick can repackage npfl and make it attractive to foreign investors.
African football legends like kanu, Samuel eto etc can use their influence to attract these investors

Arabiandude:
This guy, with this his clip that I just watched, is he not even too good for this Swedish league?

Yeah but they sent him there to develop. Even Ibrahimovic and his coaches and the management of hammarby know that. He is their Cash cow. They plan to sell him to a bigger club in one or two years time.
The plan is to develop him into a world class player and sell him and it is working.
Ibrahimovic likes him a lot.
And like I said before he is actually a false 9 by default and most false 9 can play attacy midfield. Think of firmini, Messi totti etc

TheSuperNerd:
It is never a complete day unless you shade Kelechi small....


Tijani is a Ball playing CDM by the way. A hard worker as well but not the answer to our Midfield dictator role just yet. Let him keep growing.
He and Raphael Onyedika Nwadike are similar in some aspects.

If i stand to be corrected but to me Samson Tijani is like Jorginho, fernandinho or own own
Sunday Oliseh.
A deep lying midfield creator


This is a comparison made by footballtalentscout website for talent of the day.
In fact the website comared him to Stanislav Lobotka of napoli as per playing style


TALENT OF THE DAY

Samson Tijani
Age: 18
Country: ��
Club: RB Salzburg
Position: DM/CM
Player role: deep-lying orchestrator
Strengths: passing, vision, tackling, positioning, intelligence, teamwork
Foot: right
Similar type of player: Stanislav Lobotka

humility33:
Lol it shows that this kids are not knowledgeable as we think

Just like people make dumb career decisions same with players/footballers

I get it but Nigeria is more prestigious than Uganda and everybody wants something better. He is only human. Uganda won't even qualify for afcon or make any meaningful impact at any level of football.
Playing for uganda is a downer. With Nigeria he gets a chance to play in the world cup. But we all know we have too many good forwards.
Most dual national s will only play for a country with better pedigree.

AndSunGorilla:
This is awesome!!!!!! Thanks man, I wasn't even born then.
Chai I remember the first goal scored by Okocha at the national stadium, orgasmic!!!!!! Westerhoff really tried, he brought Dan Amokachi, Uche Ukechukwu, Finidi George, alloy Agu, Ben Iroha into limelight after our then foreign based players failed to turn up for the afcon. That man was a legend!! In the 88 nations cup and after we used to parade foreign players majorly from Belgium and few African countries. This man took no crap from anyone and was ambitious!!!!

"Westerhoff really tried, he brought Dan Amokachi, Uche Ukechukwu, Finidi George, alloy Agu, Ben Iroha into limelight after our then foreign based players failed to turn up for the afcon".

In the same vein bringing Akinkunmi Amoo, Samson Tijani, Kelechi Nwakali, Obina Nwobodo into the team
will solve our midfied issues within 45 minutes. Where was Amokachi when Westerhoof used him. He was still in Ranchers bees.
You dont wait for talent to explode in a major Euroean team before you use them.
He should just arrange a friendly and use them or even against these nonsense teams we are playing now.
Westerhofs model of using unkown talent before they are ripe works.
Rohr is simply getting it wrong.
African born talents cant get into European teams on time because they are not well advertised and they have
to be patient.
I remember George Finidi made an impression against Burundi within 45 minutes.
For example Chidera ejuke in the few matches he has played has allready made an impression.
Even Frank Onyeka is looking creditable.
Rohr just has to open his eyes and be a little free minded. He has to think outside the box