Everton coach, Carlo Ancelotti, accordinging to Victor Ikpeba, may no longer have Alex Iwobi in his plans after the gaffer completely left the Super Eagles star out of Everton’s squad in their opening game of the new season against Tottenham.
Iwobi was not listed in the Everton team that beat host Tottenham 1-0 at the weekend prompting former Nigeria international, Ikpeba to suggest that the Toffees’ boss no longer fancy the former Arsenal forward in his team.
Ikpeba while speaking on Monday Night Football monitored on Super Sports, says Ancelotti’s arrival at the Goodison Park could see Iwobi struggle for game time at Everton with the Italian gaffer having signed new players.
Iwobi who joined Everton last season in a €30million move from Arsenal score one goal in 25 Premier League appearances for the Toffees laster season.
“When new managers come, they want to change personnel. If Ancelotti is going to be there for the long haul, you will see more changes,” Ikpeba said.
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“He is a top class coach and wants to end the season in the top six to start with. He sees the players and if a player is not good enough to be part of his squad, he doesn’t care.
Ikpeba added: “Iwobi deserves a starting spot, but that is football for you. Sometimes it is unfair to players.”
Ikpeba likens Iwobi’s situation to when he was starring for Bundesliga side Borrusia Dortmund.
“I had a similar situation at Dortmund with all the quality I had. When the manager doesn’t fancy you, no matter what you do,
you don’t get to play,” he recalled.
Ancelotti, who is targeting European football, handed three new signings, James Rodriguez, Allan and Abdoulaye Doucoure
starting shirts with the trio making good impression on their debuts in the win against Spurs.
Rodriguez who arrived from Real Madrid is now the preferred choice over Iwobi who will still have to contend with the likes of Gylfi Sigurdsson, Bernard, Yannick Bolasie, Anthony Gordon, Theo Walcott among others for an attacking midfield role.
In a similar vein, another ex-Nigerian international, Ifeanyi Udeze also believes Iwobi needs to move to another club where he can get good playing time.
By Sulaiman Alao
11 Comments
Well said Ikpeba. Help us loud the mic to those screaming you have to Play in the Top 10 league in europe.
So called football analysts whose only focus is Iwobi may have jumped over this piece from Ikpeba,properly blindfolded. They know more than the footballers themselves yet we fans never heard of them playing monkey post football talkless of NPFL. LOLZ. All of these critisicm of Iwobi started when Ramon Azeez was knocking for a SE invitation. Not taking any thing from Azeez, but why destroy another to make your own better?. I hate that attitude with a passion hence my resolve to stand by ALEXANDER THE KING IWOBI through thick n thing. I refuse to join such bandwagon of questionable criticism of players who have served us really well even sacrificing their club careers. I will always carrying on supporting such players, until they start displaying bad attitude to other players/losing their focus.Everytime I remember how Victor Moses was bullied and criticized into almost losing his self belief at that 2014 world cup, all because these lots were pushing the babatunde agenda, who needed community support to make one key pass, I feel really sad for him and this they wanna try again on Iwobi with regards to some players of their own but Rohr is not Keshi. And if Iwobi is that bad, Rohr will not play him.
Glory I go with you, most of the average fans here will only hail you when your name is soaring but immediately you have a down side they forget about your uniqueness, Iwobi, Iheanacho and Nwakali Kelechi are victims of these circle of judgement. Glory i will advise you to save yourself else you’ll be getting sticks from the low brains here who can not even lace your shoe.
Now it’s just read as you go that I do here and check-out comments from Deo and a few brainies here since the site got flooded by too many Charlatans.
GLORY, this is good observation, I am yet to see what Ramon is playing to dislodge iwobi….the league just started and it’s pretty too early to start criticising him of not being serious…
I wonder who is criticizing iwobi, sometimes some forumites just blow others comment out of proportion. The man said when a coach doesn’t like you and no matter how much you train, he will not field you. And we have read here times without number how certain players need to improve there games to get call up to the national team. And i ask myself what else do they need to do, how are they training differently from others So where is the criticism.
Side discussion, just copied this from owngoal,
it seems 9ja maybe ban for 2 consecutive u17 competitions if we dont provide a team for the zonal championship which is schedule to start in mid October. A forumite has been raising the alarm here for some time and the NFF are still holding dia ballz. What d SE gaffer is enjoying today is the fact that we have some truly 17 yr old that played the competition. We crashed out of the FIFA u17 almost a year now but we dont have a team. We are the most successful country in this category of FIFA competition but the NFF acts like they dont care. How would a coach create magic when dia hands are tied. We shouldn’t be blaming coaches like Manu, aigboun, amakapabio (whatever his name is) for not delivering d goods when we have leaders who try to do everything to put the country bad. This is our bread and butter, lots of kids hope to play these age grade tournaments to help expose them to clubs in Europe and possibly get contracts that could help them take care of dia families and NFF are trying to put San San for dia gari. NFF I open nyansh for una.
@Proudly 9ja, it will be to cover your “nyansh” with a big cloth because NFF doesn’t care about that at all.
I have bn saying it over and over but some of us on this forum some times, hmmm.
The current NFF have failed woefully in terms of everything.
NFF are just using Super Eagles to cover up all their calamities in charge of Nigerian
sports period.
Until we take everything back from them. Shikena. Ire o. God bless Nigeria!!!
We all need to join voice with the forumite, olabode aamuel to ask Pinnick, wetin dey shele? What game is the NFF up to? Between 2019 and now, Nigeria has crashed out of U17, U23, Women football olympics.
Is NFF bent on continuing the no-show? Why are other teams, aside the SE, suffering? The Osimhen’s, Chukwueze, Iheanacho etc we’re celebrating today were all products of age-grades.
It’s a shame indeed.I have mentioned many times Pinnick’s lack of interest in youth football development but many are interested in the super eagles to care.
Apparently,today our super eagles are relying on foreign born Nigerians to bolster or strengthen the team,whereas in the past youth football was the recruitment base for the super eagles.
I think Pinnick and co are channelling resources towards the super eagles with less emphasis on youth which is bad for the future of our football.
The idea now is to use the many foreign born players in the diaspora as recruitment ground,so where does that leave the many young,mostly impoverished but talented youngsters waiting for opportunities with the national cadet sides to bring glory not only to their families but also Nigeria?
Dont worry…….PWC, Delloitte and JP Morgan are still interviewing coaches for the national teams since last year.
I have probably said enough on the way and manner our other national teams are being handled currently. Pinnick promised a new Super falcons coach will be named in 2 weeks. Its the 2nd week already now and we’ve heard nada. Just like with our U23 and CHAN teams, when it is a week to the qualifiers, NFF will wake up and discover we dont have a team yet. They will hand-pick one of their yes-boys and then expect us to steam-roll teams that have been preparing for months because the god of football is an unjust god who favours Nigeria only even when we have failed to prepare.
I dont know when PWC started appointing coaches for FAs. The Technical committee whose job it is to do that has not met since 2017. The technical study group has not met since 2018. The NFF currently does not have a Technical Director……they dont have sense to fix all these and put their house in proper order. Most of the State FAs are in crises, leagues are resuming all over Africa, our own NPFL is not even sure of resuming….they and their media stooges wont face all these ones, but let Gernot Rohr’s matter (who has been silently doing his job and getting results amid this atmosphere of incompetent unprofessionals) pop up now, you will see all of them and their crew of media lairs jumping up and down like caged monkeys. If not for the able sports minister and we reasonable fans, we probably would be having someone who isn’t even a coach yet as the SE coach now…..I guess na PWC interview that one too.
2nd term syndrome at play….!!!
wonder what would happen if the likes of akpoguma, uduokhai, torunigha decide to play for the super eagles. I guess it will be see you later for players like omeruah, awaziem, ajayi since Rohr prefers players who play in Germany. These players will just sit in a back three formation with zaidu and ehizibue deployed as wing-backs. The midfield will comprise of Ndidi, Aribo And either of Eze or Ejaria. The forward two will be Osimhen and either of Iheanacho or chukwueze. But I would rather use iheanacho because of his crisp through passes and sublime finishing. The goalie position is anyones guess. So far no one has done enough to justify their owning the number 1 Jersey.
Subs should include: Ekong, chukwueze, aina, (two goalies), awaziem, Ejuke/kalu, desser/simy, mikel agu/Ramon, Iwobi/Etebo, simon/Musa.