The performance of the senior national team of Nigeria in recent games under new manger Jose Peseiro has been far from convincing despite the fact that the team is still on course to qualify for the next Africa Cup of Nations.

Peseiro’s team lost 0-1 to Guinea Bissau before bouncing back to beat the same team at their backyard. However the performance in both games left a lot to be desire especially as they didn’t score as many goals as expected.

Coming into the game, the fear for Guinea Bissau was clearly on how they will contain the rampaging forwards of the senior national team of Nigeria, who have been scoring goals for fun at their respective teams in Europe.

However, they managed to score just once in the two games against Guinea Bissau, who didn’t even have to defend that much as the Super Eagles didn’t carry enough threat to make them defend with fear. As a matter of fact, Nigeria’s only goal came from the spot.

Reacting to the team’s not to impressive performance, one of the players in the team explained that the team will continue to struggle untill the manager gets palyers who will play in certain ways that fits the style he wants to play.

” Our new coach is an apostle of attacking, free flowing football but to play that we need a ball playing goalkeeper, we don’t have one now. More importantly we need a player who is at home playing as a lone defensive midfielder. The ones we have now are all comfortable in a double pivot. It is why Wilfred Ndidi is struggling” he explained.

” I agree it’s the modern way most teams play when they want to go on the offensive but we can’t play that way for now. It’s the concept of playing a double 8. Attacking full backs and centre backs pushing high up the pitch. We don’t have players to play that way at least for now, so we will continue to struggle. I pray he realizes on time”, he stated.

Mohammed Mowiz

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) says they are investigating the circumstances that led to Gent of Belgium forward Gift Orban snubbing a call up to the Nigeria U23 team, OGN can exclusively reveal.

Orban who has 14 goals and two assists in 11 games from January following his move from Stabæk was handed a call up to the Salisu Yusuf led team for the U23 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers games against Guinea.

Nigeria drew the first game in Abuja 0-0 before losing 0-2 away in Morocco hence failing to seal a spot at next month Africa Cup of Nations, which is the qualifiers for the 2024 Olympic games in Paris.

The failure of the Nigerian team to score in both games reopened our discussion on the decision of Orban not to honour the call up as he could have probably helped the team in the area of scoring goals. A member of the technical department of the NFF provided answers.

” We don’t know why he didn’t turn up. The club didn’t respond to the invitation but the coaches said one of his representatives was heard saying it’s insulting for him to play for the U23 as he feels he belongs to the Super Eagles. In his words it will lower his marker value. This conversation took place in Abuja”, he told OGN.

” Salisu Yusuf was asked and he said he has no idea why Gift didn’t turn up. We are doing our investigation before taking the next step which could possibly lead to him getting blacklisted from the senior team in the future”, he stated.

OGN however reminded him that the invitation was sent late and hence the decision of the club to deny him the chance to play in the U23 qualifiers. ” It’s not true”, he said. ” If it was a call up to the Super Eagles will the club say no?. This and more we are looking at before taking a decision”, he concluded.

Damian Waziri

With Nigeria having a mini crisis in the area of goalkeepers with the suspension of first choice Francis Uzoho for the next round of AFCON qualifiers games, head coach Jose Peseiro is no doubt looking for options.

The regular second choice Maduka Okoye is having a season he will like to forget in a hurry at Watford with just two cup games to his name all season long. He has also dropped down the pecking order to the role of third choice at the English Championship side.

Victor Sochima and Chijioke Anigboso were the two shot stoppers picked by Peseiro as deputy to Uzoho during the last round of games and it’s certain that one or both of them will still be in the mix, when the team regroup for the final two games of the qualifiers against Sierra Leone and Sao Tome and Principe respectively.

OGN editor in chief Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman takes a look at the options the Portuguese coach should be considering ahead of the games in June.

Stanley Nwabali – He isn’t new to the international set up as he has trained with the senior national team of Nigeria on several occasions. Now at South Africa PSL side Chippa United, he has recovered from losing his first choice spot to keeping goal in their last three games. The 26 year old is seen as one of the key players for his side.

Adebayo Adeleye – His case is a bit confusing. From Gernot Rohr to Jose Peseiro he has been seen as a nothing more than a back up despite his fine form in Israel for Hapoel Jerusalem. Since keeping goal in the 2-2 draw against the B team of Algeria he has been in the cooler.

However the time to give him a look in is now with 22 games to his name this season with eight clean sheets. The 22 year old leads the race for a call up.

Sebastian Osigwe – Forgotten it seems but still very much relevant at Swiss side FC Lugano. Over the weekend he made his 7th appearance of the season in his team’s 0-1 loss to Grasshoppers. He isn’t new to the Nigerian set up and at the age of 27 and three years in the Swiss top division, it’s only normal for him to be considered by Peseiro.

Ovie Ejeheri – Speculations has it that he was among the players who met with Peseiro during his trip to England. He was a revelation during his loan spell at Chelmsford from Arsenal.

He hasn’t hit the same height for Finnish top division side SJK Seinäjoki. At the age of 19 and expected to be back at Arsenal next season. It’s clear to see that he has a very high ceiling for development hence reason why he should be tracked for a possible call up.

Arthur Okonkwo – The 21 year old tops the list in terms of who looks like a top goalkeeper in the making. This season he has played 40 games already across his two loan spells with League two side Crewe and also Austrian top division side Sturm Graz.

In Austria he has kept three clean sheets in seven games. The major problem in his case is that he requires a switch of nationality process after representing England at youth levels. Another concern is if the Arsenal owned shot stopper is willing to commit to Nigeria.

The fine form of Nigeria U20 forward Ademola Ola-Adebomi at Crystal Palace continued in the Premier League 2 as he was once again on target as his team claimed a 2-1 over Chelsea.

In a game where aside from Ola-Adebomi, four other players of Nigerian descent in David Ozoh, Owen Goodman, Victor Akinwale and Tayo Adaramola started for Palace, it was the striker who stole the show.

19 year old Ola-Adebomi scored a brace in the last game against Arsenal to hand his side a 2-0 win and he was once again the guy to power his team to another win by drawing his side level in the 39th minute.

He trained with the Nigeria U20 team ahead of the Africa U20 Cup of Nations but didn’t make the team for the tournament, with the coaches complaining of not having enough time to assess him due to the limited break he was granted to be at the camp.

Head coach of the Nigeria U20 team Ladan Bosso is open to having the striker in his team for preparation for the World Cup with his team badly in need of a goal scorer. Already he has seven goals in seven starts. In total he has played 14 games this season.

Daniel Martins

Damian Waziri

The U20 team of England who recently played two games during the international break had five players of Nigerian descent in the squad.

Five of them led by goalkeeper Owen Goodman, Daniel Oyegoke, Carney Chukwuemeka, Sam Edozie and Tim Iroegbunam were in the team that defeated United States 2-0 before playing a 2-2 draw with France.

According to UK based Nigerian journalist Michael Kayode, who works with the backroom staff of the production team of the English Football League, he see as many as four of them representing Nigeria in the future.

” I think out of the five of them only two stand a realistic chance of playing for England at the top level and that leaves the rest with uncertain future with the English set up. I can tell you that the duo of Chukwuemeka and Edozie will no doubt have a go with England at senior level”, he explained.

” But you see the trio of Iroegbunam, he is even ready now if called up, Goodman who was invited to the U20 team for the AFCON and Oyegoke who has a strong connection to his  Nigerian roots. They will end up playing for Nigeria.

” They are with England now because that’s what is in front of them but in the long run. They will know that a better senior international future is sure with Nigeria than England. We have walked this road before with a lot of them”, he stated to OGN.

Daniel Martins.

Nigeria failed to make it to the U23 Africa Cup of Nations after losing 0-2 on aggregate to Guinea, who were able to hold Nigeria to a 0-0 draw in Abuja before getting the job done in the second leg played at their adopted home ground in Morocco.

Led by coach Salisu Yusuf, the team paraded some of the worst players Nigeria have ever used at this level, where they were the first African team to win gold in football at the Olympics with the win in 1996 at the Atlanta games.

Although, they still stand a chance of progressing on technical grounds with Guinea accused of fielding as many as six overaged players in the games against Nigeria. If found guilty they will be kicked out of the tournament.

Looking back at their campaign in the qualifiers, one of the foreign based players in the team laid the blame on the two coaches of the team in Salisu Yusuf and his assistant Kennedy Boboye. He said both coaches are poor tacticians.