Nigeria must move past 'testing process' - John Obuh on need for 'game plan'

Injuries and new entrants should never alter Nigeria's 'coordination' against a lowly-placed side like Seychelles, says John Obuh, after the Super Eagles ran out 3-0 victors in Saturday's African Cup of Nations qualifying match in Vitoria.

The Nigeria set-up was depleted after injuries to some key players including captain John Obi Mikel, and, thus, Rohr made four changes to the team that started against Argentina in their final World Cup group game in June.

The German tactician restored Ogenyi Onazi, Chidozie Awaziem and Odion Ighalo to the lineup, with Samuel Kalu handed his debut. He also opted to set his side up in 4-3-3, as opposed to the 3-5-2 majorly deployed at the big summer in Russia.

However, despite getting their Afcon qualifying campaign back on track with the win at Stade Linite, the former Nigeria U20 coach insists that the team did not do enough against the tiny East African nation, as such games are used to 'improve' a team.

"Thank God for the victory anyway, but I think we still have to work very hard most especially anytime we are meeting a team of that level," Obuh told Goal.

"I expect we should use that situation to make sure that we keep the coordination of the ball very well, the position of the ball very well and pass the ball very well.

"When we're attacking we know we're attacking, we're defending we know we are defending. We had a lot of situation for counter-attack which we didn't use well.

"I think the most important thing anyway is we've won the game but then we must try to make sure that when we are playing that kind of level we should use it to improve on our team."

Also, Obuh suggests that there should be a laid down template which would ease the team, and its invitees.

"I wouldn't want to say that [injury-enforced changes altered coordination of the game]. I just want to think that we are still in the process of testing," he continued.

"There were some people who came into the team for the first time either because of the injuries or whatever but what I'm trying to say is let's have a sort of game plan; what we are looking for each time we are playing.

"After the victory, we should able to tell what we are going to play so we'd be able to understand how we are playing and how we are going about it, irrespective of the changes, after all, we still have a couple of players who are stable in the team," he concluded.

Nigeria play Liberia in a friendly encounter in Monrovia on Tuesday, and four Nigeria Professional Football League players [Mfon Udoh, Ebube Duru, Sunday Adetunji and Olamilekan Adeleye] have been called up.