Kanu Charges Super Eagles to Shrug Off Abraham, Tomori England’s Call-up

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Former Super Eagles Captain Nwankwo Kanu has told the Super Eagles to shrug off the disappointment of seeing Chelsea duo of Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori called up by England.

Gareth Southgate rewarded the pair for their fine start to the season by naming them in his squad for Euro 2020 qualifiers against the Czech Republic and Bulgaria later this month.

Former Arsenal favourite, Kanu insisted Nigeria should “move on” and still had enough top players to cope with missing out on the two Premier League stars.

“That’s football and I think we have enough quality and we can win matches without them,” he said.

We can’t continue to beg one player to play for us. Nigeria cannot beg, players have to beg Nigeria.”

Abraham, 22, who has won two caps for the Three Lions in friendlies against Brazil and Germany in 2017, had flirted with switching his international allegiance to the country who he qualifies for through his father.

Centre-back Tomori, 21, is also eligible to represent Nigeria and Canada at international level.

Nigeria Football Federation officials had repeatedly tried to convince Abraham to change his international allegiance but he looks set to slip through their grasp by playing a competitive match for England.

IfAbrahamandTomorifeature in any of the two Euro qualifiers, that would mean they’ll definitely be England players going forward.

Meanwhile,EnglandManager, Gareth Southgate has revealed that it is morally wrong to cap-tie both players just to prevent them from representing Nigeria.

Speaking to reporters after his squad announcement on Thursday, Southgate said on Abraham: ‘’I haven’t discussed it with him, I have left Frank to have the conversation to let him know he’s in the squad which is always nice for a club manager to be able to do.

‘’We have got literally close to hundreds of players now in our system with dual nationality so I don’t think it is ethically right just to give a player a cap to make sure they can’t play for somebody else.’’

Southgate stressed that Abraham and Tomori are homegrown talents and their allegiance is with England despite being eligible to turn out for Nigeria.

He added: ‘’The two boys Fik and Tammy are in the squad this time on merit.

‘’I am not going to guarantee that they are going to get on the pitch but they have been part of our junior system, Fik came a little bit later than Tammy but he’s been part of the youth team that won the World Cup.

‘’As far as we are concerned, the two boys have been developed through English football.