Coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Gernot Rohr is behind the push for Al Shabab of Saudi Arabia forward Odion Ighalo to return to the Super Eagles, OwnGoalNigeria.com reveals.
The forward announced his retirement from international football after finishing as top scorer at the 2019 Africa Cup Of Nations, one year after he was largely criticised for Nigeria’s failure at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Rohr has been pushing for him to return back to team and few months ago , he explained the reason why he is keen on having the forward back despite the fact the present first choice striker Victor Osimhen isn’t doing badly.
According to Rohr, the team have a host of inexperience players in attack and Ighalo will add experience to the attack. He explained that his return to the team will help the young strikers behind Osimhen to fluorish.
“He is still very fit and he is playing regularly for his new club in Saudi Arabia Al Shabab, it’s a big club. There is no reason not to take him in the Super Eagles if he is doing well. Ahmed Musa was also with us when he played in Saudi Arabia. The question is does he want to come back?, Rohr said.
“We hope so because he is an experience player, we have a young team and he can be very useful to his partners, strikers to help them to develop and to come back and score goal for us. We are waiting for that but at first he has to play now”.