Super Eagles’ coach, Gernot Rohr has expressed delight with return from injuries by the quartet of Wilfred Onyinyen Ndidi, Moses Simon, Oghenekaro Etebo and Samuel Kalu at their respective clubs in Europe, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although Leicester City’s Ndidi is back in top headlines with his English Premier League club, while Etebo appears to be struggling or game time at Galatasaray of Turkey, Kalu is yet to hit top marks at Girondins-Bordeaux of France and Simon is also yet to return to action in the French Ligue 1 with FC Nantes, Rohr mentioned them all among the lads he is banking on.
His declaration is coming ahead of the impending battles with Lesotho and Benin Republic at the restart of matches in the qualifiers for the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations, which the Franco-German tactician admits will shore up stiff competition for places in his squad, as all the players will want to be in the starting line-up.
The former Bordeaux, Niger Republic, Gabon and Burkina Faso handler added that only the best players in current form will get the nod in his selections, as the Eagles aim to wrap up a ticket for next year’s AFCON with victory away to Benin Republic and home versus Lesotho in March.
The Eagles currently top the group with eight points and need only a draw from both games to secure a berth to Cameroon 2022, where Rohr said he would have loved to see Nigeria’s home-based team play at the ongoing Championship of African Nations (CHAN).
He hinted that the failure of the home-based Eagles to qualify for CHAN 2021 has hampered the chances of any player from the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) from getting a look in with his main squad, which he believes would be even better with the return of Ndidi, Simon, Etebo and Kalu from their respective injuries.
Rohr, who has been in charge of Nigeria’s national team since 2016 and guided the team to 2018 World Cup qualification as well as a third-place finish at the last AFCON in Egypt, told Nigerian newspaper, The Nation: “The decisive qualifiers will come soon.
“It’s the moment to count on our complicity. [Wilfred] Ndidi, [Samuel] Kalu, [Moses] Simon, [Oghenekaro] Etebo and others will be back after injury and make the competition for the starting team very interesting.”
