Keshi and the boys history

Nigeria and Argentina keep meeting at world cups
This was the best yet and the closest from nigeria's point of view

I must apologise to keshi and take my hat off to him for turning it around from disgrace to jubilation.
The first "black" African coach to lead his team to the ro16. History has been made on two front also this is the first game in the world cup ever where two teams have scored in the first five minutes.

Nigeria looked good in a game where they did not need to win but just be competitive but there was some worrying point like the defence.

But there were also positives such as we scored two goals taking our tally up to 3 for this world cup.

Enyeama did not have his best day but if he is allowed a slip up this was the game to do so to get it out of his system.
Ambrose was amazing in this game providing a good offensive outlet and nearly scored the equaliser.
Also babtunde who many said should not have gone to the world cup has done well and added an attacking edge which was so lacking in that iran game.
I wonder how he will be replaced.

The biggest story line on nigeria's part is


He stepped with moses missing for some reason?
He stepped up i was suprised with so many outlets saying musa could be a break outstar of this world cup he shone in this game. Even nearly getting a hatrick and scoring a world class goal to equalise for the first time.
This is the musa we all wanted to see dangerous and direct and assured.
Also showing such composure for that second goal.

Emenike deserves a w.c goal he has been involved in basically all of our goals and he is relishing having the freedom to go wide and switch places with odemwengie and just torment defences with strength pace and direct running.
He is in for a battle every game being fouled constantly and swarmed with opposition players.
We may have lost the game but the joy of going through plus musa's goals means we can go from this game proud.
Breaking the hoodoo of crashing out in the group stage.

From big boss to big klown and how to get his title back

Its the world cup and so far it has been a great world cup... Nearly three goals every game and its a game nigeria should and has to win to make it easy for themselves.
They are also coming in under the title champions of africa.
 Everything is set up to be good.

Friendly games are put out of our minds because keshi said to judge him by the performances at the world cup..
Then 90 minutes later the revered became the hated and pride was replaced by embarrassment.
I have literally never been so ashamed watching a football match, his only saving grace is that we did not lose.


1. Why are our players getting injured, what training schedule if any are they under.

2. Certain players wee giving boarding passes to brazil since last year and we have suffered for it.

3. Tactically some would say mentally as well inept
It was the set up and the substitutions of a mad man a fool or a match fixer you choose which one applies
4.What did you do to Moses?

He is our danger man and he was useless out there.
he hardly ever dribbled and i said before the game we can score via a penalty but the one person in basically
every friendly got himself in the box. Seemed alergic to that area of the pitch.
how dd we get this moses ^^^

After seeing this moses.
5.Why have you lost your integrity by bringing players who do not deserve to go and then playing players who do not deserve to play? And then not just bring on or keep on such foolish players but to distort and retard the team whilst putting them in.

What was going through your mind to take off our main man who plays on the wing and creates for a static attacker who missed the chances he was brought on supposedly to score?
How does that work a winger for a striker who depends on wingers?
Ameobi must play by force? Why not just start him and get it over and done with?
Why bring him on before osaze? What ameobi is so useful to the nigerian team?
6.

Did not amokachi tell you it was useless and futile bringing this guy to the world cup or even worse bringing him on the pitch.
Where was your babatunde also?

7. do you not believe in midfield?
If you bring on more attackers and decrease the midfield how do the attackers get the ball to potentially score?
Escpecially if the attackers were brought in to play am.
Yet never was tried there before to see how they cope.
What happened to the Mikel experiment?
8.Why no joel obi?

Everyone has been talking about the third man and instead of take it seriously
You decrease midfielders in your roster and bringing dm minded midfielders who you are not even going to play.
Where was rueben when you could see we were doing uses long balls and we never got in behind the iranian defence.
Why replace them with attackers who you are not even going to bring on?
9.Emenike?

 Is he that good?
Why has he got no competition and why does the team not play for his strengths?
Just hoofing the ball in his direction so he can wrestle defenders?
This is not wrestling abi?
10. is musa your son?

That he must play and not get subbed when he is offering nothing extra to the team?
Why do you not play him in the middle so someone else can go out wide since he really does not want to play there?
11.Yes we defended

But since afcon that is all we have been doing, we have not beat any team outside of africa except tahiti?
Iran was our tahiti and we misfired.


What needs to be done in the next game?

Shooting but on target..
We also need people moving off the ball and running in behind defence. With the fluidity we saw in afcon or against uruguay. Who costa rica managed to beat.
We need some actual tactical in put and a fix on the tarnsition from midfield to attack.
So uchebo in
Osaze in
Moses brought back
Musa to the bench
ameobi finished for this world cup..
And change formation

to a 4-2-3-1 maybe
4-5-1
Utilizing midfield.
Also have a spine be prepared to switch things up do early subs drop players if you must.
Change formation and the complexion of the team.

Nigeria v Greece and what we observed...

Nigeria in their second to last friendly before the world cup....What did we observe???


1. If we don't win we sure don't lose..
We have played the likes of italy,mexico and scotland and have drew all those games.
Keshi is making or made a team that is hard to beat.

But that bring us on to point
2. goals

We need goals and it is funny playing with our b team we concede but also score goals.
Is it due to too much finesse or tinkering.
Also is emenike who we should rest our goal getting upon?
He does give defences trouble but are we playing to his strengths?
Also does he really work well as the lone striker or with someone?

Odemwengie
 did not really pose much of a threat or really work well with emenike.
How is he going to fit with the team?
Off the bench? Starting line-up?
Will he try to partner him again?
Will he try him up front?

3. What to do with Moses..





He is nigeria's jewel.. We saw in this game he is a handful for any team he plays against.
And he terrorized the Grecian defenders.He was just ready to run and run and run at them. They doubled up on him and fouled him but just could not contain him. (Which is good new to gervinho who will have to play them in the w.c.)

But Moses needs to upgrade from a flair player and morph into a killer, where every dribble is fearsome.
And he needs to work on his shooting accuracy.
Also up his goal tally because after awhile nigeria was just like pass him the ball.
Which other players need to exploit when those spaces open up.
Also decision making, i know victor has this mild mannered persona but you have to come to the pitch to be a killer.
And he should of came away with at least a goal or two.
So from now till the world cup practices that shooting accuracy.
Transforming yourself from a winger to a forward like cr7.

4.Dead balls

What is happening in this department and who is really in charge?
Why are three players standing around the ball? Who is assigned the role of set-piece taker or is it free for all?
Which was previously assigned to obinna in the fans mind since he scored a free-kick v ethiopia.
I see moses is tasked with long free-kicks and corners.
But we must become a threat from them and all those 6ft players must use that height to their advantage.
If none of our players can shoot well straight from the free-kick we need to start working on off the ball free-kick maneuvers. Like Greece did when they tried to chip the ball in.
Also

with Moses dribbling and at the moment no end product it gives the opponents no fear of committing those break-up pay fouls which disrupt Nigeria's rhythm because they are being squandered.
Though we are good from penalties and i saw that Moses was looking for that and trying to just get in the box before being fouled.
5.Babatunde

This guy is he there to be the scape goat because if that is the case that plan is flawless.
Because he offered nothing extra and i thought he may slot into midfield, nope just useless dribbling.
Doing body feints which fooled nobody.
6.Midfield structure

Big boss came out and said we need to improve and we did not play our game.
Well why was you only playing to actual midfielders if you want pass based football with possession mentality.Because of playing two midfielders we reverted to wing play but a defensive minded team can just crowd the box especially if there is only one man in there.And if we do not score many headed goals and also if our strikers don't have in the box movement it kinds of nullifies our attack.
Moses and musa are what i call cut back wingers. So they like to dribble the wing and cut back to a striker who has found space and then shooting from there is a easy way to score.
Well if a team is defending you may need to cut back past 3 -4 bodies, which doesn't help if the striker hasn't got that fox in the box movement or telepathic understanding.

Emenike wants space, since he is not a tight space striker. So we need balls in behind or space for him to shoot.
7.3rd man

So what is happening on this front?
Because in a 2 man midfield, mikel cannot be anchor,dm and creator. Because space and gaps appear and leaves us open to counter attacks which happened many a time.
Even yaya needed fernandinho to realease him from defensive shackles.
Many see mikel and onazi as a symbotic kind of midfield pairing.
Which is why the third man is needed and in burst uchebo can be that player.

With his silky touches and big frame just drawing players towards him.But that finesse and midfielders instinct is not really there.
Which why i was "slightly" outraged that keshi dropped a cm player for babatunde.
Because we need to play to our players strengths and a baller in midfield whether you want it to mikel or "azeez". Emenike wanted to be in behind the defence. So we needed that composed midfielder to be able to rotate with the other midfielders we got but also provided those passing skills.
To cut teams up and provide balls in behind not just long balls for Emenike to chase.
It's really weird that azeez has not played the last two games.

8.Yobo and the new players.

Is yobo trying to sneak in the starting line-up. he wasn't to bad. Strolling in to the squad has already been a tender point, what are there presence having on the team.
9.Nwofor

Professed as the fox in the box and deserving a spot. But the team did not play to help him out. He seemed like an outside also in the scotland game and if he did not score would he be in htis squad?
The teams shape needs to change to accommodate different players. I would like to see how he would play from the start with emenike playing off the wing and interchanging like he used to do with ideye.
Which allowed him to cut in and shoot a bit like robben does for netherlands.

Well on and upwards to the Usa game.

Strolling to the world cup.. nigeria 23

So after waiting and waiting and waiting then just going to sleep
We finally have the final 23 and we now no why we were waiting so long.
And now i must apologise to every ike uche fan...

When they were getting outraged.
Because i am slightly in that position...
 Though keshi had a point in some senses but that is for another day...
The 23 man squad
We know some players had booked their places from the day they were born.

We are ok with those players.

But what got to me is that out of the 23 man squad some of the 30 who we have never really seen before were going to stroll into the final squad even if they played badly.
Such as the defence because there was no real alternatives mentioned or actual jostling for positions.
Was the back-up defence ever under threat they would not be back-up in defence..
Since kwambe and such had been dropped or not been called up in like forever.

Why was the reserve goal-keeper not given a run-out like ever.. Please do not say chan why bring some goalie to not touch the pitch to just be dropped any ways like we all knew he would.Why not swits the fourth goalkeeper with another midfielder or defender or striker?

Yobo 

He somehow got into this squad... But once we saw the defensive slots and then yobo strolled up on that pitch against Scotland with that captain armband. He is not the captain anymore, what defensive composure did he show? Did he marshall that defence? Did he show the heart of a lion? Did he rally the team when we went behind? Answer no... Dud(e) could get his 100 caps after the w.c. easy against namibia and co..

Midfield looks light

In the middle i don't think there is enough there..
If we play 3 in the middle that leaves one other natural midfielder. Because uchebo is the real experiment, it can be hit or miss. He played goo against Mexico and not so against Scotland.So we will see what he is like against Greece if he starts or comes off the bench.

Gabriel


Did he stroll into the team? Is he a better option than my man joel obi?


Because he came on as a baller spraying that ball with that technique..
I thought it was suspicious when this guy who has not been in the side d nobody has been asking for strolled into the team and plays the full game..
Now tactically with Reuben i can only see him being there to allow Mikel to go forward.
We better hope that tactic works because i feel there is not many options in midfield and though i like azeez i thought it weird he did not play in that game.


Uchebo
I campaigned for this guy to get int the team as with ezekiel and of course joel obi..
So one out of three..Though all got called up..
But there is something going on here and i call it the Uchebo experiment..
Which i think is the reason one central midfielder was dropped.
Is that keshi is looking to be able to drop a forward of some kind in there making it a 4-2-3-1
or a 4-2-2-1-1
Which under the flagship of uchebo may be ushered in.
Maybe ameobi might be in there behind emenike? Maybe musa, or odemwengie?
But this is purely for the emphasis on attack which england recently did in sorts v peru.

But then spaces are created in midfield but i feel that is something you transition into perhaps not start with.
Which is why another stroller should have been dropped in favour of a midfielder.

Babatunde
Unless keshi also plans to throw him in to the midfield and is there as one of his utility players.
maybe he thinks overall he has a wider array of uses then ejike.
But why was he not there v mexico or italy and he comes and strolls in now to go to the w.c.
Though to admit whilst i was at the game one person there asked me who he was because he looked really good.

Ejike

So he can model the kit nigeria will wear in brazil but cannot wear it in brazil.
It is a very strange decision since he was the flagship for one of the praises of keshi which was the bringing through of home talent. So if the player who won best player in the home based afcon what hope is there really of other players. Especially with mba being dropped thats now two players who did big things.

odemwengie
He knew did not have to try in that scotland game we all knew once he came in the squad that he was not leaving which another kind of strolling into the team.But this one we probably will let slide because we know he has quality but can he link up with the squad with such little time.
He needs to be paired with emenike we need to see how that works. Whether he is behind the striker or off of the right. Odemwengie you need to hit he ground running and i say good luck..

ameobi
He is a cool guy i would play table tennis, tennis, badminton you name it.
But should this guy be going world cup. For real what are we sure about this guy doing. Will he score one on ones? Will he score headers? Do we really even cross the ball like that? Will he pick the right pass?

Please do not let him be a yakubu. We already went through hurt with this guy.

Lastly


We need to start getting a plan b now for with and without emenike and how do we score and create goals. this is the next step and go naija.