Sports World Cup Update: Iran parked the bus against us- Mikel

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Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel has said that the Iranian national team refused to play a free flowing game in their world cup opener which ended 0-0 on Monday.

Mikel who operated in an unfamiliar No.10 role, in stark contrast to his deep-lying midfield position at Chelsea, was handed the man-of-the-match award for attempting to at least stamp some authority on proceedings.

The former Lyn Oslo man admitted his side will have to come up and be more sharper in front of goal if they are to reach the knockout stages.

He said: "We are very disappointed because the opening match is very important.

"We looked for the win, but Iran knew what we wanted to do and put 11 men behind the ball. They managed to stop us from playing our game.

"We’ll have to create more chances in our next match and be sharp in front of goal."goal

Next up for Nigeria is Bosnia in Cuiaba on Saturday night.
 
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Not much of an excuse, in my opinion. The Iranian defense wasn't all that, if that's what Mikel's trying to say. The Nigerian team was almost totally in their box. Shots on target without any goal conversion.
 
The point is that the Eagle lacked psychological and technical approach to the game.
I also think the Eagles should work on their stamina. Syephen Keshi should show more technical ability to read the game, know who is good to play, where to make changes and when to implement changes.
 
Wondering why Mikel kept on throwing those aimless long passed, and isn't it better for Keshi to have piccked Ideye who doesn't score, but create chances instead of a Musa who was purposeless in that game. Emenike was simply terrible,but in all, we did not lose the game which is still not bad. Ghana lost, Ronaldo lost galantly with Portugal and spain were demolished. Guesss our expectations were just too high for the team to have played goalsess.
 
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