Head coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Eric Chelle says the lack training time is largely why he decided to leave some new players out of his squad for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Chelle picked a host of young players in his preliminary list for the tournament, but sources said only three of them made the final list of 28 players for the tournament, which begins in 11 days time.
A member of the technical committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) said when they sought to know from the coach why he is sticking with majority of the players, who failed to qualify for the world cup he cited lack of time for new players to properly understand the system.
He said Chelle isn’t entirely happy with the decision of CAF to give clubs more time to hang onto their players before the start of the tournament, and it could mean having just three full training session before the tournament starts.
Due to that reason, the Malian picked players who are familiar with his demands and also style of play rather than some new players. He could have picked more but had to settle for just three in Ryan Alebiosu of Blackburn Rovers, Rafiu Durosinmi of Czech Republic side Viktoria Plzen and Ebenezer Akinsamiro of Italian Serie A side Pisa.
