Former Super Eagles captain John Mikel Obi was in action for Trabzonspor who beat title rivals Sivasspor 2-1 in the Turkish Super Lig on Sunday, Completesports.com reports.
The game was Mikel’s 16th top-flight appearance for Trabzonspor this season and gave a good account of himself for the title chasing team.
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Mikel’s Nigerian counterpart Anthony Nwakaeme who started the game was replaced in the 35th minute with a suspected injury.
Trabzonspor got off to a good start after Alexander Sorloth opened scoring in the fourth minute.
An own goal by Caner Osmanpasa with two minutes remaining in the first half put Trabzonspor 2-0 ahead.
In the 93rd minute Mustapha Yatabare pulled a goal back for Sivasspor which only server as a consolation.
With the win, Trabzonspor move up the league table on 44 points and are a point ahead of second placed Istanbul Basaksehir, with a game in hand.
By James Agberebi
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COMMENTS
Since moving to Turkey Mikel has improved his fitness leading to spectacular performances week in and out for table topping Trabzonspor.
Though his few weeks in turkey wasn’t too good as he struggled for fitness in both domestic turkish football and European championships respectively evident that skippo wasn’t fit at the last nations cup in Egypt.After that sluggish start Mikel has not looked back with stellar performances which makes me to wonder if we weren’t too quick to pass judgement on our former maestro and skipper?
As it looks,Trabzonspor could win the league with Mikel playing a big part.
Meanwhile,we have lost three valuable and experienced players due to early retirement.Moses topping that least and started that exodus.Mikel and Ighalo followed suit this three awesome footballers have moved on to greater things playing for top clubs and have improved their game and the biggest losers is the super eagles.
Though playing well but obviously could do with their services for both the Afcon next year and the 2022 world cup in Qatar.
If we are being honest, the three players retired early simply because they were being hounded out by fans And the General Nigerian public.
Mikel had his father kidnapped twice whilst on national duty, plus the trips to and from China we’re taking a toll on his body. In his final two years he picked and chose which games to play to elongate his playing career and Nigerian fans expressed their displeasure quite vociferously.
For Victor it was suggested that the circumstances surrounding his moving to England were going to be exposed and he walked.
Ighalo’s family subjected to online abuse was a step too far. He was never liked by a big section of Nigeria fans and they took every opportunity to slam him.
Add all of the above to the way they were scrutinised with every change in tactics, every word taken apart, every movement looked at with a telescope and every mistake magnified and it’s no wonder they walked.
At this time we have some very experienced players in the squad who play at the highest levels, several in top 5 leagues England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany. Some good players in leagues 6 to 10: Belgium, Portugal, Turkey, Netherlands plus other leagues.
We will be fine and in the next two years the squad will mature
True talk green turf baba. But one has to ask why they retired early. Do we blame the very critical or overly critical naija fans? or Rohr’s policy of having very young players in the eagles team while outcasting the older gems?
For me, I think we do need some of the experienced and older lads in the team. A balance is needed and the combo of youth and experience can spur eagles to greater heights.
@ kbaba,I think both reasons you outlined played a big part to this questionable and early retirement at a time the team needs their wealth of experience.
Rohr is so obsessed with very young players to the extent when you are an older member of his team,you need just one bad game to be ousted,so far we can see the gains of having a youthful side but one of the negatives is when the chip are down like the semi final lose to Algeria,that is when the services of experienced players comes in handy.
I believe in form Moses and Mikel’s presence could have done enough to navigate us past the difficult Algerians.
Rightly,hard criticism from fans can be too much for this footballers who over the time have achieved remarkable success for their country and thinks they deserve to be lauded.I think they just had enough and no longer enthusiastic or rather have the passion to carry on.