{"id":1581,"date":"2014-09-08T08:20:47","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T08:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1581"},"modified":"2014-09-08T08:20:47","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T08:20:47","slug":"eagles-depart-as-chukwu-fashanu-slam-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1581","title":{"rendered":"Eagles depart as Chukwu, Fashanu slam team"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Coach<\/a>
Coach Stephen Keshi addressing the home-based Eagles players in Abuja<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beaten Super Eagles departed Nigeria for Johannesburg on Sunday night ahead of the 2015 African Nations Cup qualifier against South Africa billed for Wednesday in Cape Town. The Eagles Media Officer, Ben Alaiya, confirmed to The PUNCH their schedule while boarding the flight at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cWe are set to board our flight now from Lagos.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the Eagles were not originally scheduled to leave on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The African champions are in a must-win situation against South Africa after surprisingly losing their opening game 3-2 to Congo in Calabar on Saturday just as the South Africans who shocked Sudan 3-0 away on Friday lead Group A. Congo will host Sudan on Wednesday in the other match in that group.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a former Super Eagles coach Christian Chukwu and a former England international John Fashanu have expressed dismay at the unexpected loss Nigeria suffered against Congo in Calabar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very surprised that we lost to Congo at home,\u201d the former Nigeria captain was quoted as saying by SL10.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t know why, but we didn\u2019t play well and we weren\u2019t good enough. We never really pushed them and we didn\u2019t even play like the home team. I\u2019m shocked to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n

But despite the loss, Chukwu said it wasn\u2019t the time to trade blames.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that Nigerians aren\u2019t happy with the result but this is hardly the time for blame games, because we cannot afford that now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to keep the focus, that\u2019s what the players should do now. The milk is spilt already, no need crying over it. We must get our concentration right ahead of the next game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fashanu rather blamed coach Keshi\u2019s tactics in the encounter, saying the team\u2019s poor approach to the game gave the visitors the unexpected victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cStephen Keshi is one coach I admire a lot, but his tactics in the first half, and the players he selected cost Nigeria the game,\u201d he told SL10.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand the idea of resting players because of the South Africa game, but leaving your best striker (Emmanuel Emenike) out, and starting with a player (Uche Nwofor), who strikes no fear into the minds of the opposition, was a gamble that backfired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fashanu added that Keshi must improve on the team\u2019s defence if Nigeria must qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not looking good at the moment, but from what we saw in the second half, the Super Eagles are a good side in attack. Defensively, however, there are so many issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the goals Congo scored are avoidable with some simple basics, but they weren\u2019t there, if we are to be at the Nations Cup next year then a whole lot of work needs to be done on the defence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beaten Super Eagles departed Nigeria for Johannesburg on Sunday night ahead of the 2015 African Nations Cup qualifier against South Africa billed for Wednesday in Cape Town. The Eagles Media Officer, Ben Alaiya, confirmed to The PUNCH their schedule while boarding the flight at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos. He said, \u201cWe are set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Coach-Stephen-Keshi-addressing-the-home-based-Eagles-players-in-Abuja.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-pv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1583,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581\/revisions\/1583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}