Adarabioyo, Lukman Have Not Been Cleared To Play For Nigeria – Rohr

Super Eagles manager, Gernot Rohr has come out to say that new players won’t be invited for their 2022 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in March. He recently revealed that reports saying Ademola Lookman, Tosin Adarabioyo, Sheyi Ojo, Ike Ugbo, Nathan Tella, Nonso Madueke, Ovie Ejaria and Jordan Torunarigha have all been cleared to feature for the Super Eagles are very false.

According to him, the newspapers are throwing names about, but he’ll definitely not make his selections for the national team in such manner.

He added that he’ll only call players up after scouting them and chatting them up to know where their head is at.

His words, “You can read so many names in the newspaper, but that’s not the best way to select the players. The best way to select the players is to scout them very well, and also to speak to them if there is motivation to come. If they want to come, they have to write a letter to Fifa that they want to switch from England or Germany or Austria to Nigeria and it’s not easy for them to make that choice.”

“But we have some players in view, one of them wrote a letter already. I saw a list the other day in the media which was fake news.”

“So, for the moment, we have our players, and it is not the best moment to bring in new players when we only have one or two training sessions to prepare for a match.”

“When you come into a team for the first time, you need a little time to adapt and to take your place in the group. I hope that we can find better players, but we already have good players.”

“The best players, only the best players can come. We already have good ones, so if you want to come in, you need time to adapt, you cannot come on Tuesday and play with your new teammates on Wednesday.”

“So, let’s work on it quietly and not publicly. We welcome players better than the ones we have, we have good players already, there is a big concurrence in the striking position now, so this is not the position to invite new players because we don’t have the time before these two last matches in the qualifiers.”