Sunday Oliseh to pick five local stars for Tanzania game

Super Eagles coach, Sunday Oliseh, has revealed he will pick five players from the domestic league to join the 18 foreign-based stars for the September 5 African Nations Cup qualifier against Tanzania, reports AFricanfootball.com.

Yesterday 23 players from the domestic league began training in Abuja under the supervision of the new coach.

The former Eagles captain also expressed satisfaction with the fitness level of the home boys, stressing that he expects them to improve as the camp progresses.

“I am impressed with their fitness level. It’s our session and what we are doing is to introduce to them how we want to play.

“The training was not bad but we have a lot of work to do. All we need is for the players to remember what we are working on and we will be fine.

“I am optimistic, but we have to get everybody on ground to know how optimistic we should be. But we also need to be realistic because we know we have to get the train on ground also.”

Oliseh has also clarified the situation with some of the country’s top players, including Watford’s Odion Ighalo, who were omitted from the list he released to the press on Monday.

Ighalo was a major omission from an 18-man squad despite his exploits for both club and country.

In June, Ighalo scored his first Eagles goal in a 2-0 home win over Chad in an AFCON qualifier and he got off to a flying start in the English Premier League with a goal on the opening day of the season.

“We can only play 11 players at once. We have two other strikers we want to try out,” Oliseh said.

Russia-based Sylvester Igboun and Esperance striker, Emem Eduok, have been considered ahead of the former Flying Eagles skipper. Oliseh also restated his resolve to adopt “a winning style of play.”

“We are starting from the scratch, but with time I hope for a winning style of play,” he promised.