IHEANACHO IN INJURY SCARE
‘THAT DOESN’T LOOK GREAT FOR THE LEICESTER CITY MAN’: STRIKER IN THE WARS DURING NIGERIA WORLD CUP QUALIFIER
LEICESTER City striker Kelechi Iheanacho has suffered an injury scare while on international duty with Nigeria, writes Andy Turner.
Nigeria suffered a shock 1-0 defeat to the Central African Republic in their 2022 World Cup qualifying fixture on Thursday.
Iheanacho suffered an injury in the first half which forced him to withdraw from the game at the break.
The three-time African champions struggled to break down their visitors’ defence at Teslim Balogun
Stadium with no incisive attempt at goal and they were made to pay for it in the 90th minute as CAR converted their only shot on target through Karl Namnganda’s strike.
Coach Gernot Rohr said the absences of Foxes’ star Wilfred Ndidi and Everton’s Alex Iwobi had impacted Nigeria’s game plan.
But the Super Eagles’ cause wasn’t helped by Iheanacho’s withdrawl, a live blog on the game by en.as.com reporting that City’s the 25-year-old looked in trouble after attempting a left-footed shot on 35 minutes.
“Kelechi Iheanacho shoots and immediately gestures to the bench as he seems to be in trouble after the missed effort. That doesn’t look great for the Leicester City man,” said the post.
The player continued for the remaining 10 minutes until halftime but then didn’t emerge for the second half.
Giving an update after the game, however, the first team coach Rohr, while looking forward to the return leg tomorrow, said: “There will be some changes. Already, there are some injuries and I don’t know if Kelechi is able to play because he had a knock.
“We have some players who are tired because they ran a lot and were fighting as always. This defeat will surely make their recovery more difficult.
“They will not sleep well tonight but we have to recover and prepare for Sunday’s game which we must win.”
While lamenting his team’s defeat despite dominating ball possession, the German manager admitted the absence of his England-based stars, out due to injury worries, did not help matters.
He said: “We have to recover, and we have to make some changes in the team. We missed the creativity of Iwobi, we also missed Ndidi so much.”