Nigeria midfielder Ogenyi Onazi has aimed a thinly-veiled dig at John Obi Mikel and Gernat Rohr after his dismal display in Nigeria’s 2-1 to England on Saturday.
The Trabzonspor star took responsibility for his first-half poor performance at Wembley in which he was substituted at half-time, but also pointed the finger at the skipper and coach.
”Yesterday was really a disappointing game for us in the first half, even for me as well because there were a lot of factors which happened yesterday,” Onazi told Kwese ESPN
”Notwithstanding this is part of life, this is part of football. You just need to learn from your mistakes and then you move ahead.
”Thank God it is a preparation and when we get to the World Cup proper these things will get better. It didn’t go out well for me, it was not a good game, it was not me in the game but I have to get better.”
Reading between the lines, the central midfielder has inferred that some of his teammates have not been doing their defensive duties, adding that Rohr always wants the team to lineup in only one formation.
Indeed, captain Mikel was culpable for the first goal conceded by the Super Eagles as he was ball watching when the ball was floated in by Kieran Trippier, and for the second goal the Tianjin Teda midfielder was leisurely strolling after a misplaced pass from Onazi was intercepted by an England player.
”The problem we had was the formation and it was not going really right because I did a lot of running in the pitch and we are always one man extra in the defensive part of the game.
”The second half was much better because we played the same pattern with them, everybody was with his man.
”By the special grace of God, we have a lot of things to do, of course we have a lot to put in place in training.
”We have never had time to train really well, to really train about our system of play and all that because we have just one system of play. Now we are trying to play other systems, I think it is going to get better.
”Some people cannot be running for the team and some people are just standing, looking and it’s not going to work like that because the other team they are running, everybody is running.
”One man less is a huge difference for a team, so everybody has to do this,” the Super Eagles number seventeen concluded.
Onazi is set to participate in his second World Cup after he was included in Nigeria’s final 23-man squad announced on Sunday morning.
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