Two Super Eagles’ defenders, William Troost-Ekong from Watford of England and Jamilu Collins from SC Paderborn of Germany have both been ruled out of Nigeria’s second international friendly against Cameroon.
Megasportsaena.com reports that they both started the first game on Friday, which ended in a 1-0 loss for Nigeria in Vienna, Austria, but they bowed at different periods of the game and will not play any part in the next fixture.
This much has been confirmed by Eagles’ coach, Gernot Rohr, who admitted that he will sorely miss the quality of Troost-Ekong and Collins in the back-four, which means he may need to revert to 3-5-2 on Tuesday.
While Troost-Ekong almost leveled scores in the second half from a free-kick, the stand-in skipper should feel that he could have got more distance to his clearance before Anguissa scored the day’s lone goal, while Collins missed an opportunity to make a solid impression at left-back.
Collins managed to soldier on until the end of the game but Troost-Ekong had to be replaced on 89 minutes and, with only 16 outfield players now available to Rohr, including four defenders – Valentine Ozornwafor, Chidozie Awaziem, Abdullahi Shehu and Anthony Izuchukwu – the coach admitted he may have to play three at the back in the next friendly.
The Franco-German tactician was, however, happy in how he was able to hand debuts to Lorient of France striker Terem Moffi, Ozornwafor from Galatasaray of Turkey and Portugal-based Abraham Marcus in Friday’s loss to the five-time African champions.
Rohr retorted: “We lost unfortunately two other players through injury and it will be difficult for the second game to make the defence because Troost-Ekong and Collins are out. They cannot play.
“We have to manage again a difficult situation but it is opportunity perhaps also to play with three defenders only and to change a little bit the system, to try something different. That is why we are happy to have this second game and the result is not the most important (thing).
“The most important is to learn, to see some interesting things, to test some new players, and then for the competition to be efficient, I think what we want to do in September in the World Cup qualifiers.”
