Nigeria head coach Sunday Oliseh insists Odion Ighalo is still in his plans for the 2017 AfricaCup of Nations qualifiers despite not inviting him for next month’s game against Tanzania.
The 26-year-old, who was on target in the Super Eagles’ 2-0 victory against Chad in June, made a goal scoring debut in the English Premier League in Watford’s 2-2 draw against Everton at Goodison Park.
There was no place for him in the 18-man list of foreign-based pros for the game against the Taifa Stars, and according to GOAL, Oliseh while responding to questions after his first training with the senior team, said Ighalo’s exclusion doesn’t mean he is not in his plans.
“Well, Odion Ighalo is in our plans but for this first game against Tanzania, we are only inviting two players for each position,” Oliseh told the media.
“We are trying to get competition into positions. It is useless bringing in three professional players for the same position, paying their flight tickets and everything, bringing strikers and not being able to use one or two of them.
“So, in that also we have to take time. Also, I think we have some heavy weights in [Emmanuel] Emenike and [Anthony] Ujah for that position and if need be, we might play the two of them.
“But if we want the best in our players we have to give them some respect. Emenike is a Nations Cup winner, a strong player, Ujah scored ten goals in the German League. We are talking about a league that hosts the world champions.
Oliseh also hit out at local clubs for not releasing players to the national team for the camp which kicked off on Tuesday.
“Those who are commenting or laying emphasis on the fact that we rely mainly on foreign players to play should start asking questions because we are back home to train and we don’t have people to train because every club is trying to hold on to them,” he said.
“So, how do we now want them to learn and catch up with the ones that are in front of them. You can see that it affected our training today, we have to change our training from the beginning. We had invited 23 and we ended up with 14 players. So, I will leave you to judge from this,” he concluded.
Posted by Janice Johnson
