Super Eagles: Strikers are being starved of supplies, Ighalo cries out

Super Eagles striker Odion Ighalo has absolved himself of the team’s scoring problem, saying he doesn’t get enough supply to score goals.

The team’s frontline has come under pressure after the Eagles managed just two goals in three games; even coach Gernot Rohr admitted his strikers must improve.

In an interview with our correspondent, Ighalo insisted it was unfair to single the strikers out for blame. He said he was being starved of supplies from the middle as he was made to always drip to the deep to look for balls.

He added that the coaching crew had been working on the problem and things would be different in their subsequent matches.

“It’s my job as a striker to score goals but sometimes when you don’t get enough balls it is difficult. If you look at the three games I played, you can count how many through passes I got. In football when you don’t get enough of the balls, it is difficult to score goals.

“However, we have been working hard in training, we have been working on our finishing with the coach, there have been a lot of strategy on movements and transition, on how the front line can get the passes and I know it is going to be a different thing from our next match, ” he said.

The Shenhua Shanghai forward admitted that the injury layoff he had before the tournament also affected his sharpness.

“I was out for about two months before I played in the match against Burundi. I was injured for six weeks and it took me another time to fully recover on time for this tournament and that affected a bit of my sharpness, I scored seven goals in eight games for my club before the injury but I am very much okay now,” he added.

Ighalo stressed that Eagles had left behind them the disappointment of losing 2-0 to Madagascar and are now ready to march on in the tournament.

“The last match was a disappointment, we didn’t play very well, I think we were a bit relaxed, maybe because we had already qualified. I can tell you it will be a different game if we are to meet Madagascar again, I don’t want to give an excuse that we underrated them because they played as if their lives depended on the match, they fought for every ball. It was a wake-up call for us, now there is no room for mistakes, we have to win our matches if we want to continue here in Egypt,” he said.