Siasia takes blame, defends Ighalo
Siasia takes blame, defends Ighalo
Posted: 2009-09-30 09:44
Flying Eagles coach Samson Siasia has accepted responsibility for the team's poor showing so far at the Fifa Under-20 World Cup in Egypt.
Siasia's team have lost their two games against Venezuela and Spain, failing to score in the process, and the former Nigeria international says he had very little time to build a good team.
"I know that three months to the World Cup was quite a short time but I thought I could try some things to make it happen. But it didn't happen.
"We had a lot of issues like players not coming to camp on time and all that but I am not going to blame anybody about anything. It is all my decision to come back and whatever happens I think it is all my fault," Siasia said.
The Flying Eagles have also failed to find the back of the net despite creating a truckload of opportunities, and although the coach came down hard on his strikers immediately after the Spain loss, he was quick to defend captain Odion Ighalo, who has been disappointing so far, and his decision to keep faith with the misfiring forward.
"I think our captain is one of the best players we have in this tournament but he is just having a bad tournament. When you have strikers that can score goals but fail to do so in two games, it becomes a problem.
"If you believe in strikers sometimes it works out but this time around I think it is not working out. Ighalo is the biggest striker we have around and the smaller ones couldn't have done better any way.
"What I did was to take chances but it did not work this time around and I accept responsibility for what happened," Siasia stated.
With four best losers advancing after the group stages, Siasia and his wards will hope that they can sort out their scoring problems against Tahiti, and pray that other results go their way.



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