What Went Wrong In London? Viable Replacements Needed In Super Eagles

The clarity of the Super Eagles misdemeanor at the Hive Stadium in London skewed a lot towards some inevitable deficiencies and once again set pulses racing, calling for measures to be taken as well.

This had been a long time coming and the death knell seemed to have sounded as soon as the last minute change resulted in Leon Balogun dropping out due to illness and quite why Rohr thought it wise to replace him with Chidozie
Awaziem ahead of Kenneth Omeruo remains baffling.

While that seemed the necessary evil the German could have mustered, addition of a viable experienced head in defence, it must be said, was a tactical nous which could have paid off.

Joel Obi has yet not done so well to justify his re inclusion, Ogenyi Onazi tried to do one too many things in the absence of the team's adhesive Mikel Obi.

Ndidi remained egregious but unavoidably rendered ineffective. It seemed the team's best players the likes of Victor Moses and Alex Iwobi all struggle to replicate any sort of cohesiveness when the Tianjin Teda man is absent. Yet again, it showed.

As Serbs resorted to exploiting the less experienced Tyronne Ebuehi down the right, much of the cover up work fell to the aforementioned Onazi and the team's attackers failed to truly trouble Vladimir Stojkovic in the Serbian goal.

It is worth noting that the Super Eagles would come up against much more organised teams as Serbia were on the night in Russia come June.

And there was young Francis Uzoho. The 19-year old would hardly be blamed for both of the goals he let through but realistically should not be saddled with so much responsibility as a first-choice teamer, no doubts about his quality though.

This first loss since June 2017 is a very necessary reality check and now that Rohr and his wards are no longer under any illusions as to where they are, it is important corrections are taken now, with three more tune up games to be negotiated before the tournament proper and that would mean to sniff out worthy replacements for every position in the team.

Emmanuel Chinaza