Ahead of W/Cup Qualifiers: Need to retain Eguavoen, reshuffle technical team

In as much as I was not happy with the outcome of the Super Eagles participation at the ongoing African Cup of Nations, AFCON in Cameroun, there is need for us to be cautious.

The interim coach, Austin Eguavoen by all calculations, he tried even though he made some blunders especially in his substitutions in the last game against Tunisia.

With less than three weeks, he was able to put up a team that played beautiful football with nine points in the group stage after more than five years of former coach, Gernot Rohr.

Many agreed that the reason why the Super Eagles lost the match against a depleted Tunisian team is because they were tactically better than the Nigerian side.

A team that had seven players and the chief coach plaque by Covid-19 still went ahead to win the match that has the compliment of all its players and coaches.

There is no need to bring in another coach in less two months to the encounter against Ghana with the first leg in the West African country.

Bringing in another coach was spend doom to Nigerian’s chances of qualifying for the World Cup because the coach will come up with his own policies, different tactics and others which the players might not adopt to on time and we all know the implication of that.

There is no doubt that retaining Eguavoen will be the only option left since the players are already used to him and he also know them too.

However, many believe that Eguavoen was actually boxed to the corner and couldn’t get assistants from his assistant coaches hence the need for the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF to reshuffle the Eguavoen’s assistants if we must overcome Ghana in the two-legged World Cup qualifiers to Qatar.

If we must make the qualification very easy without panicking, we need to bring in the likes of Emmanuel Amunike, Finidi George and Ike Shorunmu instead of Joseph Yobo, Paul AIgbogun and Salisu Yusuf. They can be drafted to other national teams if they must be engaged by all means.

The senior national teams across the world are not where people learn on the job but where the best brains, heads are assembled.

Meanwhile, if the NFF eventually agree to the suggestions above, then they must also be careful with the selection of players that will prosecute the match.

Those who couldn’t help the team at the AFCON should be excused for now, maybe when the team qualifies, they might be considered. The likes of Olayinka Peter, Ahmed Musa, Nwakali, Awaziem, amongst others should be dropped.

However, with the likely inclusion of Osimhen, Odion Ighalo, Oghenekaro Etebe coming back to the team, it will be difficult for Ghana to stop the Nigerian flags from being hoisted in Qatar at the World Cup.