Stoke City Nigerian midfielder Oghenekaro Etebo is facing a battle to be fit for the senior national team of Nigeria when they begin their AFCON 2021 Qualifiers tie next month after going off injured yesterday in his side 0-1 loss to Sheffield Wednesday.
Etebo was substituted after just 24 minute in the loss with coach Nathan Jones blaming their loss partly on the fact that they were without the influential midfielder who was their player of the season last season.
“To lose Etebo early was a big blow for us and then to lose your centre-half, invariably the one that came on makes a big error for the only goal of the game”. Nathan Jones said after the game.
Jones later revealed that the 24 year old Nigerian suffered a muscular injury which will require some time to heal but it effectively rules him out of the club’s game this weekend against Millwall.
“There’s a lot of contributing factors, but the reason we haven’t come away with a point is probably one refereeing decision and a big error from ourselves. Carter-Vickers had sustained a cut that would have taken 15 minutes to stitch up, Etebo suffered a muscular injury which will take a while to recover. Nathan concluded.
The injury puts his participation for Nigeria in the AFCON 2021 Qualifiers game against Benin Republic and Lesotho respectively under serious doubt with initial reports suggesting he could be out for a month, which is around same time the Super Eagles will be in action.
