Super Eagles: Why I won’t select new players – Rohr
Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr has revealed his decision not to invite new players to join the Super Eagles.
The 66-year-old recently handed call-ups to Maduka Okoye, Josh Maja, Dennis Bonaventure and Joe Aribo in their international friendly against Ukraine in September.
23-year-old Aribo was one of the standout performers for the Super Eagles during their Africa Cup of Nations qualifying games against the Benin Republic and Lesotho, where the three-time African champions claimed back-to-back victories.
Rohr has revealed his satisfaction with the current crop of players at his disposal and does not intend to bring in new ones.
“There are no more friendlies, so there is no more time to invite new players we don’t know,” Rohr told the media.
“We need harmony in the team and if you are bringing in new players to do better for the team than they are doing now, which one do you want to push out of the team?
“Those players must be really better than what we have already.”
Rohr admitted he was missing the services of Stoke City midfielder Oghenekaro Etebo and Lokomotiv Moscow left-back Bryan Idowu, who were not part of the squad during their recent Afcon qualifying games.
“I hope everybody will be fit, we missed some players for the qualifiers like Oghenekaro Etebo and Bryan Idowu, who could not come,” he continued.
“It is good to have competition and to have such good players, now we have four very good central defenders but I have to choose two or play three as we did in the second half in Lesotho.”