The Nigerian goalkeeper has been under criticism for his displays in recent games
Former Green Eagles goalkeeper Emmanuel Okala has attributed the recent fumbles of the Super Eagles' goalkeeper, Francis Uzoho, to the negligence of the team's goalkeeper trainers, Soccernet.ng reports.
Uzoho suffered severe knocks for his poor performance during Nigeria's friendly matches against Saudi Arabia and Mozambique over the past few days.
The Omonia Nicosia shot-stopper made a mess of a direct freekick, which he punched into his own net to hand Saudi Arabia the lead. The Super Eagles battled back to claim a 2-2 draw with the Green Falcons.
The 1980 African Cup of Nations Cup winner stressed that it is unfair to solely point fingers at Uzoho for the team's draw against Saudi Arabia.
Speaking with The Guardian, Okala emphasised,
“The goalkeeper’s trainer in the Super Eagles seems not to be doing his job well. He should be the one to take the blame, not Uzoho.”
Okala further highlighted the importance of proper training, stating,
“As a goalkeeper trainer, you have a responsibility to train your keepers how to deal with set pieces, including free kicks. How they will position themselves and arrange their defence line.”
Expressing his concern, Okala added,
“Some of the deficiencies we see during matches are things that were left unattended to during training.”
In response to the recent game, Uzoho admitted to his mistake in the friendly against Saudi Arabia, acknowledging that his error led to the opponent's advantage.
However, he urged fans to remain supportive, emphasizing the challenges of his crucial position, saying,
“You can make ten saves and control your area well, but just one mistake, people will forget all that.”
In the latest friendly against Mozambique on Monday, Uzoho's performance faced criticism once more as he let a straightforward finish slip past him into the net.
Nevertheless, the Super Eagles rallied and secured a 3-2 victory, their first friendly win since 2019.
The super eagle goal keeper training cannot be really blame for his poor performance over the years. What about his club side? Don’t they have the keeper training there? The guy is not good that is the fact. He cost us Nation Cup in last edition against Ghana.
At this stage in his career, how can you still be blaming goalkeeper trainer for set piece training. We should be talking about his refinement and match fitness oga Okala.
Okala should just keep quiet. He’s coming from a club to represent his country where he trains on daily basis but you point finger at a national coach who only have few days to train him. Okala should just tell us where he stand here. Uzoho shouldn’t just be Nigeria first choice goalkeeper.
With goalkeepers like Uzoho, Nigerians should stopped dreaming of winning the fourth trophy.
It’s too late to start making up excuses for the GK Uzoho, he is the weak link in that team, even the coach is not sound tactically, we have a very formidable team but he couldn’t bring out the best in the players. Adeleye is the best GK option we have now and the Enyimba GK as backup, watch the game between Mali and Saudi then judge the malian’s playing pattern with Nigeria then you know our coach is not sound and Nigeria is not formidable with Peseiro, they cant qualify from the group stage of the Nation’s cup if we continue to play like this.