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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Nigeria former international, Samson Siasia, has cried out that absence of a creative midfielder is the missing link in the current Super Eagles squad.
He spoke in a chat with SportingSun in Abuja, arguing that the situation has even responsible for the poor performance wnd lack of scoring form of the Eagles attackers.
The former Eagles head coach therefore pleaded with the Super Eagles technical crew and the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to put machinery in action to convince and draft Crystal Palace mercurial playmaker, Chidere Eze, into the team.
Asked the missing link in the current Eagles squad, Siasia said: “Well, we don’t just have a number 10, that is a creative midfielder in the mode of Jay Jay Okocha that can distribute accurate passes to the strikers. We don’t just have them now and that is why I have been thinking of Chidera Eze with Crystal Palace. The Super Eagles needs that player. He could be the next Okocha if we invite him.
“I have told Eguavoen that the team needs a player of his mood. He will be a good addition to the Super Eagles. We need somebody like him in the team because if you don’t have an offensive player who creates chances for the strikers to score, the team will have problems.
“That is why we had the problem we faced during the Nations Cup in Cameroon. Strikers like Awoniyi will run around without getting the ball and we will say he did not play anything, yet nobody gave him the ball.
“When Sadiq came in, even though he missed many chances, he, however, created some chances too. Awoniyi is a good player, scoring very well but we have to understand the network between the midfielders and attackers.
“If the strikers don’t get the balls, they have to create the changes by themselves. This is the biggest chance we have. We are not bad defensively and I was surprised they keep blaming the goal we lost against Tunisia on the goalkeeper, but they forgot that great keepers need to have good defenders.
“The defenders cannot allow them to shoot only to blame the goal on the goalkeeper. They ought to block the ball because any ball they shoot appropriately, no goalkeeper can catch it and that was why we lost that game.
“Above all, we must know that football is a team sport and if the defenders don’t want them to embrace the goalkeeper, they have to block the balls flying every minute and hour. If we can learn from our mistakes, we will do a better job moving forward,” Siasia argued.
