Eguavoen's search box-to-box midfielders : NFF send chief scout to watch Reading star

Published: March 14, 2022

Nigeria's caretaker manager Augustine Eguavoen is keeping tabs on Reading midfielder Tom Dele-Bashiru with a view to handing him a call-up to the Nigeria squad for future games.

Eguavoen admitted last week that he was scouring Europe and the Nigeria Professional Football League for box-to-box midfielders in the mould of Mutiu Adepoju and late Thompson Oliha, and checked out some players during his recent trip to England.

Allnigeriasoccer.com can exclusively report with certainty that Paul Aigbogun, who is Nigeria's chief scout by virtue of his position as Deputy Director, Technical & Scouting, Nigerian Football Federation, attended a Reading game last month to run the rule over box-to-box midfielder Dele-Bashiru.

Aigbogun informed the Watford loanee after the game he could be called up to the Super Eagles in the near future as his progress is being monitored.

Tom Dele-Bashiru represented his country of birth, England at U16 level before committing his international future to Nigeria, and played under Aigbogun at the 2019 Fifa U20 World Cup, where he became provisionally cap-tied to the Nigeria Football Federation.

The Manchester City academy product was a member of the Dream Team squad to the 2019 U23 AFCON and made his competitive debut for the age group off the bench versus South Africa.

This season, Dele-Bashiru has been doing well for Reading, making 30 appearances in the Championship and has directly participated in six goals (4 goals, 2 assists).

Ifeanyi Emmanuel

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