Authors:
Suspicious Adebayo Pulse Contributor
The Super Eagles played her best football during the 90’s under coach Clemence Westerhof , majorly played 4-4-2 formation with Rashidi Yekini and Daniel Amokachi leading the attack.
Rashidi Yekini is the finisher while Daniel Amokachi helped in draining and running down defenders with his strength, creating space for Rashidi Yekini to find space in the opposition goal area, waiting for passes from right, left or centre as Finidi George, Emmanuel Amuneke and Sunday Oliseh knows where locate Yekini.
Since the exit of the Yekini and Amokachi from the stage, it’s been so difficult to find an attacking pair that can complete each so well, which will make the 4-4-2 formation to be easily executed by the team.
Emmanuel Emenike/Brown Ideye attacking pair flourished and won the 2013 Africa Cup Of Nations for the country under late coach Stephen Keshi.
Though short-lived, it reinforced the notion that the Super Eagles thrives better with wing play and a potent attacking pair that defines the 4-4-2 formation.
The array of talent in the current set of Super Eagles will give any good coach joy but more selection headache as such a coach must come up with a formation based on the dimensions of players at his disposal, that will deliver the desired results, consistently.
With Simon Moses, Samuel Kalu, Chidera Ejike, Ahmed Musa, Samuel Chukwueze, Anayo, the team is blessed with wingers that can make the Super Eagles fly through the wings.
The attack needs a pair of striker dare devil strikers to complete the deal, of which the scoring form of Osimhen and Onuachu makes the two of them the best candidate for the job.
But the question remains whether both players can play together as 8 and 9 upfront and provide the desired for the Super Eagles.
To answer the question, let’s try to analyze the strengths, style of play and weaknesses of the two players and established that it is complementary and pairing them upfront is an experiment worth trying.
Onuachu strength lies in his ability to run into space, finding good positioning and has high scoring chances conversion rate.
He also uses his height to maximum advantage as he is very good using his head. He is particularly good at using his right foot, pressing players with taking and dribbles in a one on one situation.
His left foot is one of his weaknesses, he also lacked offside awareness and also poor defensively.
The strength of Osimhen lies in his ability to drop deep and contribute to team play even though he scores goals.
He is also good with the ball on his right foot, and in defensive duties. His low rate of goal conversion and his temperament are few of his noticeable weakness.
From the above, it obvious that the two players style of play, strength and weaknesses is not the same but complements each other.
The Super Eagles coach needs to experiment on the possibility of making the pair playing together, forming a dependable goal scoring partner.
The potential in the partner is huge and it tends to match or even surpass the feat of the Yekini / Amokachi partnership.
Onuachu can play as the man in front and Osimhen playing behind him, and vice versa, this makes it a better partnership than the Yekini/ Amokachi and it’s only Yekini can lead the attack while Amokachi played behind him.
Neither Yekini nor Amokachi could use their head effectively while Onuachu with heads is a constant threat in the opponent’s box as long as the delivery and service from the wings are well delivered.
And Osimhen is a better version of Dan Amokachi as his conversion rate is far better than Amokachi and still capable of making those energy-draining runs at opposing defenders.
The 2022 World Cup qualifiers is a ground to test and perfect the workability of this partnership as the likes Liberia, Cape Verde and the Central Africa Republic doesn’t have it what takes to stop the Super Eagles All things being equal.
This partnership can be best tested in a competitive game as this will afford the coach to field his best legs available and all the players will be committed to ensuring the team win.
The onus is on the Super Eagles coach to try as much as possible to get the best out of the team and maximize the potential in the team to ensure they deliver the goods.
Thus asking for a try of this Osimhen/Onuachu O-O in the attack of the Super Eagles is not too much, and it’s a good risk worth taking as taking calculated risk is a hallmark of every ambitious coach.
The ball is in Gernot Rohr’s court.
Olusola Adebayo is a highly-skilled, enthusiastic, self-motivated writer with over 10 successful years of experience.
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