Crawley Town manager Rob Elliot has disclosed that the club is still monitoring Super Eagles defender Benjamin Tanimu’s physical and mental state of mind after coming back from international duty with Nigeria.
Tanimu’s was part of the Super Eagles squad that were held hostage for hours at the Al-Abraq airport by the Libyan authorities.
The squad was expected to land at Benghazi Airport on Sunday ahead of Tuesday’s African Cup Of Nations (AFCON) qualifier in Libya, but as the charter flight was descending, it was diverted to Al Abraq, 200km away, with no alternative transport offered.
Speaking ahead of Crawley’s game against Reading this weekend, Elliot in a chat with the club’s website stated that they are still monitoring Tanimu’s physical and mental state of mind before concluding on whether to feature him.
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“It might be a bit too early to tell. I’ll speak to Ricky [McFarlane] who is our head of performance here and who is fantastic. There’s a lot to monitor because of the football and the unique circumstances of the last couple of weeks.
“He trained today which is good, gets him on the grass. Obviously you are not a Nigerian international without having talent and ability. But we need to make sure we do the right thing by Benjamin. He’s had a testing week or so and he’s had an indifferent first few weeks since he has come in.
“We want to make sure we do the right thing by him and when he goes in he is ready and we are not going to put him at any risk.
“He seems like a really good professional, a really good athlete. We’ve seen from games he has played in he has ability and hopefully he can help us. We just have to make sure we get it right when we do include him.”
