Head coach of the Super Eagles, Gernot Rohr, has explained why he dropped Leicester City striker, Kelechi Iheanacho and Rotherham United defender, Semi Ajayi, from his 23-man travelling party to the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt this month.
Withinnigeria had reported on Sunday that Kelechi Iheanacho and Semi Ajayi were the two players that have been dropped.
Both players did not feature on Saturday as Nigeria were held to a 0-0 draw by Zimbabwe in an international friendly played in Asaba, the Delta State capital.
Explaining his decision for dropping the duo from Super Eagles 23-man final squad, Rohr was quoted by Allnigeriasoccer as saying: ”You cannot judge from one game in these conditions. We already have our opinion before the match because we observed them throughout the season and we saw what they did and also all week in the training sessions.
”We had seven training sessions to see the fitness, confidence of the players. It’s not this match alone that will give us a decision on the two players [Kelechi Iheanacho and Semi Ajayi] we have to drop.”
Rohr added: ”You see that we played with seven strikers, all the strikers who deserve to play. We started with 3 strikers, the others came in.
”Normally in a match you cannot bring so many strikers. We played with a lot of offensive players.
”We have Chukwueze, Kalu, Henry, Osimhen, Paul, Simon also. The choice of dropping two players is really difficult for me.”
