Eagles Official Gushes Over Midfield: Mikel Intelligent, Etebo Engine, Obi Energetic, Ogu Classy

Published: May 17, 2018

Super Eagles Media Officer Toyin Ibitoye is thrilled with the national team's options in midfield heading into the World Cup and has predicted that they will be a strong unit with Leicester City's Wilfred Ndidi making solid progress in his recovery from a hamstring injury.

Few can argue with his statement, with Rohr expected to parade former Chelsea star John Obi Mikel, hardworking Oghenekaro Etebo and strong John Ogu at the World Cup, ex-Inter Milan super kid Joel Obi returned to the squad for their friendlies in March.

'There is a lot of options for the team, this is a very energetic midfield, youthful, can do a lot of running,'' Ibitoye told Channels Television.

''Of course, you know Ndidi is recuperating very fast. Ndidi is young, the best tackler in the English Premier League.

''Etebo is a box-to-box player, can run all ninety minutes plus and then you have the intelligence of Mikel that brings the whole team together. ''

He continued : ''You have Joel, very energetic and full of running. Ogu is in a different class when it comes to that position as well, so we have a lot of options.

''This is a strong area and we are going to play against teams that want to dominate like Croatia with the world class midfield that they have. ''

Trabzonspor's Eddy Onazi, Porto's Mikel Agu and Standard Liege's Uche Agbo are the other midfielders named in Nigeria's 30-man provisional World Cup squad.

Igho Kingsley