Chukwu May Adopt Westerhof's Style

The Observer · Post by **The Observer** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:19 pm

By Uzor Odigbo, ThisDay Sports of January 23, 2004

A close confidant of the Super Eagles coach and former deputy chairman of Anambra State football Association Chief Isidora Odua has said that Christian Chukwu may adopt the playing style of his former boss Clemens Westerhof to achieve victory at the Nations Cup.

Odua, who spoke in Lagos yesterday, assured that Nigerians would again witness Eagles fast wing play as opposed to central attacking pattern of play.

He stressed that strikers like Yakubu Aiyegbeni and John Utaka may be drafted to the wings with Nwankwo Kanu and Julius Aghahowa playing the central striking roles, just the way Westerhof used George Finidi and the duo of Emmanuel Amuneke and Daniel Amokachi to run the wings and provide crosses for Rashid Yekini.

Odua noted that to put under pressure teams such as Cameroon and Senegal, a good coach would need accurate and fast attackers who would not waste opportunities.

The former Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) board member, predicted that the Super Eagles have an edge, but only on past performance which he said, still frightens other teams in the competition.

"If Chukwu can introduce Westerhof's intimidating posture such as shouting at referees against poor officiating and players that are not playing their role well when a match is in progress, he will make progress, if not, he should forget adopting his playing style and I told him this," Odua said.

The Observer · Post by **The Observer** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:30 pm

I wonder if Chukwu considered this when he announced his 22 players. While it will be possible to provide effective personnel for the right wing, the left wing is weak.

MI5 · Post by **MI5** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:41 pm

The game is only few days away...

omotori · Post by **omotori** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:48 pm

this is good news if the personnel is available. Ikedia would be an option on the right.

green4life · Post by **green4life** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:09 pm

This is a damn pipe dream... we don't even have ONE winger worth mentioning.. and no.. strikers parading as wingers won't do the trick either.. He's got enough players to custom tailor a game plan to suit his personnel... trying to copycat another persons work is nothing but laziness in my own opinion...

Gooner1 · Post by **Gooner1** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:20 pm

This is complete crap journalism.

Football has moved on, Westerhoff's tactics will not work today in the modern game.

MI5 · Post by **MI5** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:31 pm

the game is few days away i can't wait...

shaq · Post by **shaq** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:38 pm

green4life wrote:This is a damn pipe dream... we don't even have ONE winger worth mentioning.. and no.. strikers parading as wingers won't do the trick either.. He's got enough players to custom tailor a game plan to suit his personnel... trying to copycat another persons work is nothing but laziness in my own opinion...

uhm... it is actually cluelessness

omey2k4 · Post by **omey2k4** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:42 pm

Westerhoff style?Whatever!

geminikoat · Post by **geminikoat** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 4:50 pm

What's CW's style; potent offense with leaky mid field that inevitably caused many Nigerians palpitations due to incessant barage on our defense. We won, but many of those games, for the most part, were not pretty.

omotori · Post by **omotori** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 4:55 pm

Chukwu has options in terms of wing-play. With Yobo, Udeze & Cele at wing-back if he desires, thats some decent wing-play.

Ikedia may not be a top winger but his runs always force the defence to respond. again half-bread is better than none.

I really do not see the eagus performing without some wing play. Any tactics that does not include pressure down the wings will not succeed.

Blakes · Post by **Blakes** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 4:59 pm

omotori wrote,

I really do not see the eagus performing without some wing play. Any tactics that does not include pressure down the wings will not succeed.

I dont understand...why dont u see eagus preforming without wing play? just because we have been using it b4 doesn;'t mean we will die without it...we really dont have any quality wingers..

Shownoja · Post by **Shownoja** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:01 pm

Wing play is good if you have the personel, but we are lacking that at the moment, so adopting the style of Westerhoff is not possible at the moment, and as greenforlife said, I will rather CCC develop a CCC style, than copy without modification the 10 year old style of another.

omotori · Post by **omotori** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 6:09 pm

everytime Yobo or Udeze makes a run down the flank, its wing-play
everytime Ikedia is brought into the game in the second half, its wing-play
everytime Jag rotates to the right to pick & run the ball, its wing-play

the eagus have quite a few players who can run the wings competently. even Utaka & some of the other guys can contribute.

we do not have to have the classic Finidi-Amunike duo to have wing-play.

And I will say it again, the eagus strength has always been in using their midfield to wear down the opponent plus wing-play to stretch out the field so the guys can turn on their skills.

We may have to battle out the midfield with Senegal/Cameroons, using wing-play to break spread them out.

Wing-play does not necessarily mean dedicated wingers.

charlie · Post by **charlie** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 6:17 pm

omotori wrote:everytime Yobo or Udeze makes a run down the flank, its wing-play
everytime Ikedia is brought into the game in the second half, its wing-play
everytime Jag rotates to the right to pick & run the ball, its wing-play

the eagus have quite a few players who can run the wings competently. even Utaka & some of the other guys can contribute.

we do not have to have the classic Finidi-Amunike duo to have wing-play.

And I will say it again, the eagus strength has always been in using their midfield to wear down the opponent plus wing-play to stretch out the field so the guys can turn on their skills.

We may have to battle out the midfield with Senegal/Cameroons, using wing-play to break spread them out.

Wing-play does not necessarily mean dedicated wingers.

I must admit, I think you make a very convincing argument Omotori. I hope CCC is actually taking notes.

The Observer · Post by **The Observer** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 6:29 pm

omotori wrote:everytime Yobo or Udeze makes a run down the flank, its wing-play
everytime Ikedia is brought into the game in the second half, its wing-play
everytime Jag rotates to the right to pick & run the ball, its wing-play

the eagus have quite a few players who can run the wings competently. even Utaka & some of the other guys can contribute.

we do not have to have the classic Finidi-Amunike duo to have wing-play.

And I will say it again, the eagus strength has always been in using their midfield to wear down the opponent plus wing-play to stretch out the field so the guys can turn on their skills.

We may have to battle out the midfield with Senegal/Cameroons, using wing-play to break spread them out.

Wing-play does not necessarily mean dedicated wingers.

Well said, but what happens on the left. Lawal, Baba, Ekwueme and Udeze can not provide the fire power which the likes of Utaka, Osaze and Ikedia would provide on the right, particularly when Abbey will be playing behind them. Hence, Nigerian attack will be solely from the right, which might be neutralised later in the competition. Options available to CCC is to have Udeze playing behind Lawal. The marking will be on Lawal who would be dropping back with his marker and releasing a defender who should appropriately be an attacking midfielder; Udeze. Further more, one of the strikers can also favour the left. This will pull the defenders apart and allow the right winger space to do some damage. Anyway, what do I know.

Blakes · Post by **Blakes** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 6:58 pm

omotori wrote,

everytime Yobo or Udeze makes a run down the flank, its wing-play
everytime Ikedia is brought into the game in the second half, its wing-play
everytime Jag rotates to the right to pick & run the ball, its wing-play

very true my brother it is all wing play...but it is the kind of wing play that we dont want too much of because it will countinously leave somewhere exposed...
if u have quality wingers then there is no need to over-depend on players in other positions to switch to wingers..i.e the defenders comming up front to attack like yobo and udeze... A quality team, i.e cameroon or senegal will take advantage of this and butt screw us on the counter...
Ikedia will become a winger once he makes his first succesful cross...i think the Ajax coaching crew will agree with me on that one...

Because of our lack of Amunike's and Finidi's i'd rather see C3 adopt some thing other than wing play to begin with...we can fall back to wing play when all else fails...it might be too late by then but such is life

this is why players were suppose to report to camp on time, so that C3 can try all this stuff(wing play etc) out with the practice matches and see what works best...at the first match C3 will still be experimenting..hope morrocco will still allow us flog them as always..

daddyrich · Post by **daddyrich** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 7:06 pm

green4life wrote: ... trying to copycat another persons work is nothing but laziness in my own opinion...

It's one thing to say he doesn't have the personnel composition to make it work, it's quite another to say he is lazy for learning from Westerhoff.

Ahmodu admitted he wanted his team to mirror that of France circa '98 and he did a good job of it. His team needed only some tweaking for the WC.

Even in it's Mali form, that team would have gotten Nigeria more than one point from 3 matches.

People clamour for IC's to get exposed and when one decides to mirror what he was exposed to (can't get any more exposure than being his assistant), you now call him lazy

May God help Nigerian football fans

green4life · Post by **green4life** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:36 pm

daddyrich wrote:
green4life wrote: ... trying to copycat another persons work is nothing but laziness in my own opinion...
It's one thing to say he doesn't have the personnel composition to make it work, it's quite another to say he is lazy for learning from Westerhoff.

Ahmodu admitted he wanted his team to mirror that of France circa '98 and he did a good job of it. His team needed only some tweaking for the WC.

Even in it's Mali form, that team would have gotten Nigeria more than one point from 3 matches.

People clamour for IC's to get exposed and when one decides to mirror what he was exposed to (can't get any more exposure than being his assistant), you now call him lazy

May God help Nigerian football fans

bro, you gotta understand my post before responding. C3 doesn't have the personnel to execute westerhoff's style of play.... yes, he can use udeze or other wingbacks to widen the attack but that was not westerhoff's tactics and is not your traditional 'wingplay'. What he needs to do is analyze the strengths and weaknesses of his players versus the opposition and custom tailor a style of play for each game.... anything less is straight up laziness if not incompetence. 8)

Dodo · Post by **Dodo** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:38 pm

We aint got the wingers to deliver he crosses, Utaka dribbles to much on the wings as does Ikedia, not sure about Ekwueme's crossing ability

green4life · Post by **green4life** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:39 pm

the eagles has good players who are not necessarily good crossers and who may not have the type of speed that a finidi had in 1994... that's my beef with this 'copy westerhoff' crap... he has guys like jj, JAG, YAK, Kanu, ikedia, osaze, etc, etc... and it's his job to fit the pieces of the puzzle into the game plan.... CUSTOMIZED for each individual game... 4-4-2 with wingplay is not the only way to play & win.

Baii · Post by **Baii** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 11:04 pm

Abeg make man hear word. Which one be wing play again. No be the same thing Baba Backstabber Oni said when he wanted to backstab Amodu. I wondered why it didn't workout for him in the WC

furiously frank · Post by **furiously frank** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 1:13 am

So Ayo was right afterall when he said most home based coach/players still have the outside right and outside left wingers mindset!