Re: Nigeria v Arg: The Excellent, The Good, The Average, The
Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2017 5:31 pm
Bigpokey24 wrote:get lost you clueless football watcher, are you that shallow in football..Argentina had the lion share of possession, Nigeria was struggling to hold possession, Mikel is one of the most intelligent footballer ever, When he shields the ball he takes the pressure of our team.. go and watch the game,. he got fouled so many time which was good for us ..some of you watch football with zero tactical senseheavyd wrote:I am worried about Mikel. He is no doubt a quality player but He still has the annoying habit of holding on to the ball too long. He seems to want to try to prove a point that he can shield the ball from anyone for no particular reason. Even though he is quite good at it there were times when had drawn players to him creating space for teammates but he held on too long and either the chance was lost or he was dispossessed.kali wrote:Of course they were going to close off Mikel. All the tapes they watched they saw him as the playmaker for the team. What Argentina did is what other teams are going to do. Nigeria will have to have a plan B attacking strategy. The good thing is that Iwobi, Iheanacho, Moses, Moses Simon, Ighalo are all players that can slot into different attacking roles. You can see that Iwobi's major strength is his ability to work in small spaces. He could very easily be transplated into a box number 9 striker. Iheanacho can also very easily slot into the Mikel creative role. I wouldn't be worried about Nigeria's attack. We can go wide or we can go through the middle. Goals at the qualifiers came from at least 5 or 6 players. That is what you want - distributed scorers.deanotito wrote: I’m not a fan yet. I think Iwobi and Iheanacho would have a hard time against a back 4/5 in a competitive match. Maybe Vic Mo and Ighalo would have fared better but Kele and Iwobi were often isolated ...especially in the first half, and they lack the prowess and technical ability to handle that many defenders. Maybe the full backs weren’t overlapping as they should, and maybe Rohr would like to use Vic Mo in the same way he is used for Chelsea...so I’ll keep an open mind. But the first half of that game was instructive. The argies closed down Mikel quick and isolated Iheanacho and Iwobi...with nothing being produced from the wing backs, it wasn’t looking good. They could have killed us off in the first half.
I don’t mean to take away from our 2nd half display and I’ll give the eagles credit for playing in a system they weren’t used to....But i saw too much isolation of Kele and Iwobi in the 1st half...and a pretty clinical choking off of Mikel.
Where Rohr quite rightly is putting his focus is on the defence. Every top team is now playing the half field counter. You have to be very positionally disciplined and quick to recover against the Brazil's, Frances and Germanys of the world. You have to be able to stop the attack right from defensive midfield. You have to be able to close down penetrating passes down the wings. He is finding out the strengths and weaknesses of players to adapt to these quicker attacking blitzes. Balogun and Aina struggled but Idowu and Ebuehi did better. I am sure he will be looking at more options before finalizing his team.
At the World Cup luckily for Nigeria, Italy and Netherlands did not qualify. That leaves 5 teams with World Cup prowess (Brazil, Germany, France, Argentina, Spain). I would suggest that Nigeria organizes a friendly with the Netherlands and Italy to shore up its weaknesses. We should also look for a friendly with any of the dark horses of the tournament:
- Uruguay
- Mexico
- Belgium
- Portugal
- England
There was also a moment (many moments actually) in particularly when Aina was bursting into space on the right and all he needed to do was play a ball into the space and Aina would have been past the Argentine defence. He really needs to play these balls quicker. Rohr should have a word with him.
Hello Dunce...
I was expecting you...
I wont ask you to kiss my Arse cos its obvious your lips are reserved for Mikel and Mikel only ...