Paul Onuachu netted his 16th goal in the Belgian Jupiler this season as Genk defeated visiting Kortrijk 2-0 on Sunday.
Onuachu also had am assist as he set up Black Stars of Ghana forward Joseph Paintsil for Genk’s second goal.
It was Paintsil’s first goal for Genk since his brace in the Belgian Cup defeat to Club Brugge on 1st of December 2021.
While 19th September 2021 was the last time Paintsil scored in the Belgian league in a 2-1 away win. He has just two league goals this season.
Sunday’s fixture against Kortrijk, Onuachu put Genk 1-0 ahead in the 17th minute before providing the assist for his Ghanaian teammate just five minutes after the opening goal.
Onuachu has now taken his tally to 18 in 33 games in all competitions this campaign.
And following the win, Genk maintain eight place on 44 points – Europa League play-off spot – in the league table.
By James Agberebi
18 Comments
Eguavoen should learn how to use Onuachu.
He is a great asset for Super Eagle. Rohr couldn’t make the best use of him because Rohr was so lazy and rigid.
His presence in opponent eighteen during comer kicks is a treat and advantage.
God bless Nigeria
Onuachu will be Nigeria’s weapon of mass destruction against Ghana. He is used to being the centre of attention so no shaking.
Whatever it takes to optimally utilize your potential, should be done Equavoen, there is no doubt, this is another potential that has not been fully explored, WHY IS HIS COACH ALMOST ALWAYS GET THE BEST OF ONUACHU?
LET OUR COACHES COMPARE NOTES WITH COACHES WHO HAD WORKED WITH THIS PLAYER, THEY MAY GET A CLUE.
ONUACHU PLAYED LIKE THE HIGHEST NIGERIAN GOAL SCORER, GANGLING RASHIDI YEKINI, HOW DID ONIGBINDE UTILIZE HIM IN HIS DAYS?
COACH, YOU HAVE ANOTHER JEWEL IN YOUR HAND,WHO CAN ADD ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE TO YOUR STRIKING FORCE.
It’s not rocket science. To get the best out of ONU-GOAL, you need to do only one thing.
Provide good crosses into the box.
The crosses don’t even need to be directly on his head. He knows how to use his height well, and he knows how to attack a ball. Give him crosses, and he will give you goals.
The way Nigeria play, we hardly see crosses into the box. Genk will provide Onuachu with as much as 10 good crosses in one match. That’s why he scores so many goals there.
The right winger Ito especially is very important to Onuachu, because Ito provides a lot of quality crosses.
Leave Onuachu on his own upfront like we’ve been doing, and he will struggle. That is not his game.
All Eguavoen needs to do is instruct the lads to look for Onuachu with crosses into the box.
Do that, and the goals will flow.
We went to AFCON with CFs standing at above 1.8m and I cant recall any decent headers from any of them.
Our current wingers and full backs cant seem to pin-pointedly cross accurately enough to save their own lives.
@Dr.Drey… Don’t mind our lazy wingers who cant cross… Maybe like you once asked, it may be time again to go beg Amuneke and Finidi to comeback from retirement and cross ball for Onuachu in just two games against Ghana.
Dr Drey, I seem to recall several decent (low) pullbacks, crosses and long balls from Super Eagles players (not just wingers) in the just concluded Afcon that Onuachu could have profited from……
Also, many great set pieces had to be defended well by our opponents whilst the formation that Eguavoen used allowed a winger like Ejuke to execute the simplest of pullbacks. He instead elected to shoot on at least 3 occasions.
I guess my point is: in the set up used in the Afcon, several balls were delivered to areas that Onuachu would have profited from.
What we need to remember is that Onuachu not only gets his goals from high crosses from the byline. Low diagonal pullbacks, cutbacks from deep, long deliveries from freekicks, long balls from deep, route one football and simple driven pass from inside the 18 yard box are all his staple.
And these weren’t in short supply from our wingers, fullbacks, support striker and midfielders in the just concluded Afcon.
Deo, we will need a complete overhauling of our national team to get Onuachu to function like he does in Genk. More like creating an entirely new assembly line to get a new product. Where exactly is the time and resources to do that. For example, none of our 8 wingers currently for no fault of theirs can be rated as very good crossers of the ball. Its want modern day football has shaped them to become – inverted wingers. So we will have to go searching for the next Finidi or Beckham that will make that dream a reality.
Onuachu has started in 6 out of 16 caps he has in the SE and as well made several substitute appearances…I dont think it is possible that in those 6 matches, there were no Low diagonal pullbacks, cutbacks from deep, long deliveries from freekicks, long balls from deep, route one football and simple driven pass from inside the 18 yard box. I can give you examples of goals we have scored from each of these scenarios, none of which came from the boots of Paul.
Infact, the hallmark of Rohr’s style of play was working the ball into the box to the feet of a no 9 to finish off. In return, the no 9 also has to do a lot of work for the team too….hold up play, diagonal movements, runs behind defences and so on. That was why we produced kept producing ‘top scorers’.
Onuachu went into 2019 AFCON as the 1st choice center forward and in no time, it became evident he wouldnt offer much. There’s more to playing football nowadays than waiting in the box for crosses to be floated to a striker. Even goalkeepers nowadays are demanded to be part of team play. Just like Tunisia read us and clipped our wings, it wouldnt take much to double on our wingers to prevent those crosses from coming into the box. That was how the likes of Edwin Okon (Japan 2014), Manu Garba (New Zealeand 2015), Siasia (Rio 2016) and John Obuh (Colombia 2011) were clipped by more tactically astute teams at crucial stages of competitions. And I dont think Onuachu is the most dynamic of strikers you will ever see.
Yea…his style works pretty well in Belgium, but does it work in Europe where the level is a bit higher…? 0 goal 1 assist in 5 matches in UCL, 3 goals and 0 assists in 15 matches in the Europa league. A total of 3 goals and 1 assist in 20 games (similar return in international football) doesnt look like one that will fire any team to glory in we want to tell ourselves the truth.
@Dr.Drey I blame coach for this, when tell them to just go there and do their things and express themselves what do expect?
Naturally everything winger will want to drible before thinking of throwing a good crosses.
It is not in all situations a winger will be able to make il his through so our coach needs to train our fingers on how to shoot good crosses for striker.
Yinkus, I dont think 2 days of training in the national team is adequate enough to train players on their skillsets. As a matter of fact, I’m yet to see a player who developed a skill set solely in the national team camp.
Its either you have it naturally or you develop it in your club(s).
And currently, I dont see any of our wingers who naturally has that Finidi-esque, Antonio Valencia-esque, Aaron lennon-esque ability to find the eye of the needle with a cross from from the bylines
Samu a lefty plays on the right and Simon a righty plays from the left and you expect crosses from the wings, maybe in Dreamland. You guys should be realistic. Until and unless we have righty~eighty and lefty~lefty in their right places or swaps during matches then don’t expect crosses. Good morning house
What are you saying. Is Michael Olise’s not a lefty playing on the right wing? Who deliver crosses into the 18yard box more than him in Crystal Palace? That comment of yours is not an excuse at all the bottom line is “The current wingers we have can’t naturally cross the ball and they have failed or they are being lazy to work on this weakness of theirs” I don’t blame at all its the NFF that’s being too slow in completing the switch of Olise & co.
What ever happened to the style of play where the wingers switch around during the game? Why does the left winger have to be stuck on the left wing if he is an inverted winger. If coaches are smart you mix things up. That is what Eguavoen and Amunike needs to adopt. Onuachu and rest of the team can benefit from a more mobile, fluid, total football system. Something similar to the Dutch/Ajax systems. The wingers should be interchangeable during games to really unsettle opponents and bring out new looks to the attacking front. Imagine a game where one moment Simon is attacking the left wing and next he is on the right.
Same with Chuckwueze or whoever starts on the right wing. You will keep full backs on their toes the entire game and impossible to read the wingers movements. Chuckwueze can benefit especially from this too.
If SE can play that way then I’ll say only then can we play Oshimen and Onuachu without changing too much the structure and dynamics of the team.
When some people said in this forum that SE is made up of avrage players some guys Will be shouting they all played in the best League in Europe but they don’t understand the différents between World class player and avrage player.you don’t need to tell a World class player when to give a cross that Can lead to a goal or when dribble the opponent to give a better cross or a deadly passe.instead our boy will dribble when they suppose to cross the ball and some people will be shouting praises for them. May God help us
I’ll keep saying this no matter what people say.
….we’ve club player and we also have national team player….
We also have players that possess both qualities.
The Onuachu I know for years cannot be a national team player we need in our current SE unless he works on his game.
I’LL even prefer a SODIQ UMAR over Onuachu 100 times.
Sodiq has what Onuachu lacks.
Watch his game against Tunisia and compare it with that of Onuachu.
See the way Sodiq tormented those Tunisian tall defenders with the little time he spent on the pitch.
Watch the way LIVERPOOL plays, SALAH-MANE rarely cross into the box because of the inverted pattern they are using.
It’s ROBERTSON & ARNOLD-ALEX that float in dangerous balls into the box for other players to do the needful.
The question now is; do we have such full backs in persons of Alex-anol & Robertson in our current SE???
The Nigeria I know doesn’t believe solely on “CROSS and NORD”.
We’ve been playing ground purposeful sexy football from onset, and we have been doing very well so one one-direction striker would not come and kill us with “cross and more”.
Cross and nord
Some players are clubside materials, others are National team materials and some are training Experts/material.
the days of Finidi and Amunike were natural wingers. Finidi a natural right leg winger playing no.7 while Amunike a natural left leg playing no.11 so it was easy for them to make decent crosses into the goal area and score on few occasions, thereby creating chances for the stickers but these days what we have are inverted wingers where Chukwueze is a left footer playing no.7 and Simon a right footer playing no.11 meaning that they have to cut in to try to score than to pull a cross into the danger area even when the pull a cross it is coming right from of the defenders giving them better chance of defending the crosses unlike when a the winger will cross balls from their natural wings and the ball will come in from behind the defenders and before the will defend the ball they would either step back or turn around to meet the ball thereby giving the strikers upper hand to restle the balk from them