Head coach of the Super Eagles of Nigeria Gernot Rohr says captain of the Nigeria senior national team John Mikel Obi will keep on playing for Nigeria, despite his limited playing time for Chelsea.
Mikel is yet to play a competitive game for Chelsea under new manager Antonio Conte, but in that same period of time. The 29 year old has played twice for Nigeria.
He even refuted Conte’s claims that injury is why he isn’t playing for Chelsea, and went a step further by starring for Nigeria in their 2-1 win over Zambia in the World Cup 2018 qualifiers game.
However Rohr who warned players of the team to sort out their club forms or forget playing for Nigeria, backtracked on his captain insisting he is an exception to his rule on club form.
” Mikel brings a lot of to the team. We have a very young team. He motivates them on the pitch, his work ethics is an inspiration to the young players in the team. Such players can’t be left out of a national team” He told Owngoalnigeria.com.
” As long he isn’t injured and trains regularly, am okay. For now he is one of the most important player in our team”.
