Eguavoen Settles For 27 Players In Quest For Africa Cup Of Nations Conquest

Super Eagles’ interim coach, Augustine Eguavoen will be banking on only 27 players, instead of 28, to help him win the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations’ trophy on February 6, megasportsarena.com reports.

This is sequel to feelers from the Nigerian camp that the former defender, Captain and head coach is not keen on adding Feyernoord of Neherlands striker, Cyriel Dessers to his roster in place of Al-Shabab of Saudi Arabia’s Odion Jude Ighalo.

With confirmation eventually coming early Thursday that Ighalo will not be in Cameroon for the 2021 AFCON, analysts pointed towards Dessers as a viable alternative, but Eguavoen is thinking otherwise.

This is in spite of startling statistics showing that, aside Taiwo Awoniyi (14) and Ighalo (12) on Eguavoan’s final list of 28 players for the competition, Dessers (with 10 so far this season) has scored more than any other Nigerian striker, but ‘Egu’ has opted to snub the former Heracles Almelo of Netherlands and Racing Genk of Belgium ace.

However, all odds had already been staked against the Belgian-born center forward making the Eagles’ squad, as his name was not in the original provisional list submitted by former coach of the side, Gernot Rohr in Nigeria’s initial 40-player roster for the tournament.

The Eagles’ interim gaffer also admitted that he is not familiar with the style and attributes of Dessers, who is on loan from Genk to Feyenoord, though his total pool of 21 outings have mostly come from the bench.

He said this is in comparison with the fate of Henry Onyekuru from Olympiakos of Greece, whose name was in the provisional list, and Peter Olayinka from Slavia Prague of Czech Republic, who also has previous invitations, but not much is known about Dessers.

Eguavoen disclosed further: “Onyekuru came in because Dennis is out. Onyekuru has always been around with the team, Dennis has not always been around the team.

“Olayinka was named in the 40-man list and I didn’t want to go outside the 40-man list. I spoke to the President about it.

“I have watched Olayinka in Champions League game against Inter, I haven’t watched Dessers closely so because of the time factor that’s why I decided to stick to people that I know.”