The substitution of Alex Iwobi in the Super Eagles 0-2 loss to Croatia in yesterday’s World Cup 2018 game has been widely criticised by Nigerians but coach Gernot Rohr insist it was the best decision.
Many felt like Iwobi carried Nigeria’s real threat to goal in the game and his substitution played a role in the failure of Nigeria to recover from going behind before they conceded the second goal.
Deployed on the left side of Nigeria’s attack, Rohr explained that the job of defending made Iwobi to struggle to carve any meaningful opening in the opponent’s half before his substitution.
He explained that the need to inject pace into the attack of Nigeria was why Ahmed Musa was introduced for the Arsenal forward, before further stating that Musa could start the next game.
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“Alex Iwobi did well in the beginning later Ahmed Musa came in to bring his speed to the match and he has the chance to start the next game. Alex did very well in the three weeks we had our training camps and he deserved to start the game. He had a big work to do defensively against right-back (Sime Vrsaljko) who was very offensive”, Rohr said.
“He had to work a lot to contain him and was missing the energy for his offensive game. But he did well in his tactical role. He tried also with some dribbles to be dangerous. So he did well. It was not his fault that We lost the game, it was the mistakes we did from the corners that cost us.”
Osas Mahawi
