Sunny Oliseh begins his tenure as coach of the Super Eagles with a road draw against Tanzania, in a game in which the hosts had enough chances to feel disappointed with a point. Overall the Nigerian performance and team game was tepid and disappointing. The game by itself is culmination of the early first steps of Oliseh, and there are enough pointers from the overall performance to the extent of work that is required to rebuild the team to a competitive force on the global stage.
For all his commendable achievement in wining the Africa Nations Cup, Stephen Keshi's failure to build on this major achievement, left his successor with a team in far worse shape than he met it...
2. In my humble opinion, the failures of Nigerian coaches in the national team has often stemmed from poor management, especially with the failure to hold players accountable. It is in this regard that I was very enthused by Oliseh's selection policy, and I would encourage him to stick to it, making exceptions of course, but most appropriately.
3. Nigeria is a team that is at the moment lacking any truly world class outfield players. But what the country has is a cadre of young emerging professionals who, with thoughtful selection and creative tactics, can be a very effective team, with the qualities to be devastating on the counter.
4. Therefore for Oliseh to succeed, he must be willing to challenge existing order. Readers of this blog will recall my call to Siasia at the beginning of his tenure to make wholesale changes to rebuild the team, rather than cosmetic changes.
5. As I had urged Siasia back then, I would like to similarly urge Oliseh to continue to challenge established order, by holding players accountable. A critical part of this revolves around the role of Mikel Obi who was absent from this game. In my opinion, Oliseh must creatively challenge Mikel to live up to his talent and responsibilities to the team both through personal intervention and by developing viable competition for places in the team.
6. Getting back to the game, the critical technical issue behind the team's performance for me was in the structure of the midfield, featuring a double pivot of Obiorah and Izunna, a player I have consistently advocated for in the past.
7. It took the first Tanzanian attack to expose the deficiency in the Nigerian structure, with the Super Eagles consistently facing a 3v2 in central midfield, with Haruna exhibiting all of the worst traits associated with him since he first broke through at Monaco more than a decade ago. Oliseh must be commended for his swift decision in replacing him.
But the lack of balance in the Nigerian midfield is by itself a reflection of the failures of Nigerian coaches, dating back to the locust years of Christian Chukwu.
8. Nigerian coaches must learn to evolve with their players. Ahmed Musa for all intents and purposes is no longer a winger but a forward, playing either wide or centrally, off the shoulder of the last defender
9. In the double pivot, the positioning of both Izunna and Obiorah was consistently too close, with both players naturally drifting to the same position, a reflection of their predominant roles as anchor in their various teams. In effect, Oliseh selected two similar players without sufficiently resolving the positional issues which was bound to emerge.
10. In my opinion, the Nigerian game at the Mkapa Stadium might have been better served with a switch to a 4-3-3, with two box-to-box players either side of Obiorah, a role the more versatile Izunna could've fulfilled. Instead, the imbalance in midfield was further reinforced by the introduction of Sylvester Igboun, a striker from his years at Danish club, Midjtylland.
11. Going forward, Oliseh must aggressively look for new, viable players in midfield, defence and attack. But this must signal the end of Haruna's international career! Anything less would directly question Oliseh's commitment to holding players accountable. In defence, the search for a genuine right back must continue, as well as commanding centerbacks.
12. The back to back games against Egypt will be decisive. With the expected return of Mikel and Onazi, some control and balance should return to central midfield. But a creative player at the top end of the midfield triangle is still lacking, which again suggests to me that a reconsideration of shape is necessary.
13. The clamor for new players especially Odion Ighalo will expectedly grow. I remain unconvinced by the player. In my opinion, he needs to be given the space to fully establish his game in the premiership. Although the European season is in its early stages, I think that Grenada's Isaac Success is at the moment better established to be given a look.
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