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Samuel Chukwueze is nursing a slight groin injury ahead of Tuesday’s crucial 2022 World Cup qualifying playoffs.
Chukwueze did not join his Super Eagles teammates in their training session on Sunday evening.
While the other players were being put through their paces the Villarreal forward was with the team’s physio.
After spending time with the physio he later went back to the bench while the rest of the players continued with the session.
And after the session assistant coach Emmanuel Amuneke said the forward has a slight groin injury though not serious.
Also he said Chukwueze did not take part in training as a precaution.
It remains to be seen if Chukwueze will feature in Tuesday’s second leg clash.
Chukwueze was in action in the first leg on Friday but was substituted in the second half.
An outright win for the Eagles will seal qualification for this year’s World Cup in Qatar.
For Ghana a score draw will be enough to earn them a fourth World Cup appearance.
By James Agberebi in Abuja
15 Comments
The OVERHYPED SAMUEL CHUKWEZE….
The injury is a blessing in disguise for us. He lacks maturity in his game. We need a purposeful winger cum dribbler like Ademola Lookman to replace him in the starting lineup.
No b lai dat guy na confirm flop
Akin Amoo will easily replace Chezy. God bless you Samu. Nigerians loves you and are wishing you speedy recovery.
Chukwueze is no more relevant in the team
Mumu. U sabi play ball that u are making noise.
Quick recovery Brother!!
I have heard many senseless fans calling Egu one dimensional coach bcos he emphasizes wing play. I want to ask. Which coach does not use wingers at the international level? None? Right. A team with good winger is always very hard go beat. In fact Egu is spot on but he has to let our wingers play like Finidi and Amunike did in the golden era. A winger is suppose to put out crosses and through balls to the number 9 to score. That’s what Simon and chukwezd lack. They don’t play purposely in the wings. That’s they are easily cage
. The injury is a blessing in disguise. We need a player with a miaue last ball in that postion
People say he is a one dimensional coach because he is proving himself incapable of tweaking his strategy or formation. The same pattern he used in the nations cup that got us knocked out by Tunisia is what he is still playing – 2 natural midfielders and 4 attackers. That is suicidal when you play a good team coached by a technically sound coach.
Even in the golden days that you mentioned, Westerhof never played with 2 natural midfielders. He used players like Ezeugo (used as a destroyer), Oliseh, Amokachi (box to box player), Adepoju, and Okocha. He rotated these players depending on the team he was playing and what formation he wanted to use. Even Okocha as good as he was did not start the match against Bulgaria!
Players like Finidi and Amunike were very dynamic during their days. They could cut in and make crosses. But Simon and Chukwueze can’t do that. They rely on dribbling into the 18 yard box. This makes it easy for them to be easily marked out. Tunisia did it and Ghana has also done it.
When you put Bonke and Aribo in the midfield and Simon, Chukwueze, Iheanacho, and Osimhen upfront, you have only structured your team to play a 4-2-4 formation. Those 4 players upfront can’t play in the midfield. Iheanacho cannot play in the midfield because we have seen it against Tunisia and against Ghana. Eguavoen need to play minimum of 3 midfielders in his team and he should be willing to play a real 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 formation. That is how you play to the strength of the current super eagles players.
At the end of the day, 4-2-4 is a legitimate football formation that won the world cup for Brazil in 1970 and contributed in powering Eguavoen beyond the group stages of the recently concluded Afcon.
But for goalkeeping error and an unfortunate red card, the story against Tunisia might have been very different. In-game, Eguavoen’s formation does change to 4-3-3 as it did constantly against Ghana with Chukwueze dropping into midfield or Iheanacho becoming a sort of ‘ghost centre attacking midfielder’.
My issue is, can Eguavoen make this formation durable and sustainable? Can he replicate the sort of effectiveness we saw with it against Egypt at the Afcon?
With wingers who have poor pull out abilities and poorer crossing range, support strikers (like Iheanacho) who lack the needed fluidity and dynamism, midfields without vision or long passing range and 10 outfield players not very comfortable with the movements needed to make it work, then 4-2-4 will be useless.
The ball is in Eguavoen’s court. Already, he looks like the stubborn type who will do what he wants regardless of criticism. I pray it works for him because we have to be in the world cup draws of this Friday!!!
Deo I disagree with you. 424 is not effective presently because of the personnel he is using. Iheanacho can’t function effectively in that position. He is useless as a midfielder. This weakens the team. So when 424 is supposed to turn to 433, iheanacho us useless. Chukwueze presently is not giving his best. He is too predictable.
What exactly do you disagree with me on? I have always maintained that 4-2-4 is high risk, problematic and arguably out dated.
But if Eguavoen can tweak it to make it work and relevant for our time, then he is a genius. With this formation, we almost hammered Egypt 4:0 at the Afcon. Had Iheanacho’s first touch not deserted him, had Ejuke not been satanically selfish, we would have scored at least 2 more goals against Egypt using this formula. So, it can produce results.
Very apt assessment josh. God bless you. I hope coaches Eguavoen/Amunike and Salisu Yusuf are paying attention to what you just said above. Thanks
@Four Four Two God bless u my broda. Its not limited to just international football my broda. Pep employs wingers (Mahrez, sterling, grealish, even gabriel jesus & foden sometimes), Nagelman of bayern munchen uses kingsley coman and muellar on d wings, Klop uses salah, mane, diaz, on the wings even thoigh they often drift to the middle, Arteta uses pepe, gabriel, saka, also on the wings, Ancelotti uses vinicius jr, rodrigo, asebcio, hazard on the wing, Tuchel uses ziyech, pulisic, hudson odoi, Xavi uses dembele, ferran torres also on the wing. These are all big name coaches who employ wingers to good effect with a little tweak here and there. Note these coaches have ample time to experiment and perfect their wing play since the have these players for the entire season whereas Eguavoen only gets these guys for max 2 weeks and people expect the team to be a well oiled machine that will beat every country it faces just bcos we are Nigeria and other countries are there to sell ekpa (groundnut). People also talk about different formations like 352, the only coach i know dat employs this tactics to good effect is Conte, most coaches employ 4 at the back. Take Pep for example, his formation isnt digferent from what Eguavoen employs, u have Diaz and stones or laporte sane way eguavoen has Ekong and Balogun,,Pep has Walker and concelo, eguavoen has aina and zaidu. Pep has Rodri or Fernandinho as DM eguavoen played Bonke or Onyeka or Etebo, Pep uses Gundogan or Silva eguavoen uses aribo while Pep has De bryuine eguavoen uses Iheanacho. Please note am not comparing the coaches or the players but just the formation and tactics employed. If you check the Liverpool team its same thing. Arnold-Matip-Van Dyke-Robertson which makes 4 at the back
Fabinho (DM)-Thiago (keita)-Henderson which makes 3 in the middle
Salah-Jota-Mane making 3 forwards. How is this different from what eguavoen employs. Again am not comparing the ability of the coaches or the players ooo but just dia tactics and formation. Manchester united employs same tactics. We can call the formation 4123 or 4213 or whatever, they all boil down to 4 defenders, 3 midfielders and 3 forward. If the tactics that eguavoen employs is archaic then all the big name coaches are also utilizing obsolete formation. Just my tots tho, we can always agree ro disagree.
Bros them I hail everybody don talk well n we all right in our various opinion but d bitter truth is its all egu fault based on d personnel he is using to interpret his tactics,chukwueze is now so predictable n he thrives in a game where there’s space for him to operate,iheanacho is not a dogged midfielder for such tactics,the coach should play 3 core midfielders etebor/onyeka/ariebo n give them instructions 3 midfielders remains our strength,against Algeria at d world cup qualifier, against Ukraine/brazil even the nation’s cup winning team of 2013/we have onazi/Mikel/mba combo for dis reason I will go for dis first 11 uzoho,ailma,bassey,eking,balogun,etebor,onyeka,ariebo,Simon,oshimen,dennis n see what will happen to Ghana but laslas egu has d final say
God bless Nigeria