Bonaventure’s Invitation To Nigeria’s National Team Came Late – Ranieri

Watford of England attacker, Emmanuel Bonaventure Dennis is in the thick of a club versus country face-off, as his coach, Claudio Ranieri says the star’s invitation to the Super Eagles’ camp came late.

Megasportsarena.com gathered that, with that proviso in view, Ranieri says The Hornets are not obliged to let Bonaventure head off to the Eagles’ camp at the start of next week.

This is in contrast with expectations that the former Zorya of Ukraine, Club Brugge of Belgium and FC Cologne of Germany ace would be among the United Kingdom-based lot expected at the Eagles’ camp in Abuja on January 3.

Rather than worry about the in-form attacker leaving on the said date, Ranieri hinted that Watford could decide to keep their player for another week, which would see him join the Eagles at their base camp in Cameroon.

In reaction, though, a top official at Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) threatened that the national office will report Watford to world soccer governing body, FIFA to enforce the release of Dennis for the Africa Cup of Nations.

This comes few hours after Dennis hit target yet again for Watford, though it came on a night they lost 4-1 at home against West Ham United, whose captain, Mark Noble labeled the fourth minute strike by the in-form Nigerian star as ‘a great goal.’

Dennis fired a rising shot into the top corner to break the deadlock after evading the challenge of Craig Dawson, taking his tally in the top-flight to eight goals in the process, but The Hornets suffered their fifth successive loss in the EPL.

Tomas Soucek popped up to put the finishing touch to a flowing move in the 27th minute and then Said Benrahma with the aid of a deflection shortly after that ensured that West Ham went into the break with a 2-1 lead.

In the second half, Noble converted a penalty in the 58th minute to put West Ham in comfort zone and Nikola Vlasic with an easy finish wrapped up the scoring in stoppage time, following which The Hammers’ captain recounted: “They started with a great goal for Dennis.”

Subsequently, with eight goals and five assists, Dennis has been Watford’s best player of the ongoing campaign, while only Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (24) has had more goal involvements than the Nigerian lad’s 13 so far this season in the EPL.

That would explain the reluctance of Ranieri to be without the red-hot striker, who is expected to play his last game for The Hornets on January 1 before linking up with the Eagles in Abuja, but the gaffer hinted that the player may not be released due to discrepancy in the timing of the letter of invitation to the national camp.

Ranieri declared: “The national team has a time to send their precall, they don’t respect the days and I want to see very well. I know the email arrived late and I want to know everything.

“The email arrived late to call him. The national team has a time, during this time they have to send the precall, if they don’t send the precall, we can choose.”