Shehu Abdullahi is the primarily at fault for both goals conceded by Nigeria in the 0-2 loss to Croatia in their opening World Cup 2018 game according to former Nigeria U17 World Cup winner Daniel Joshua.
Joshua whose career came to a premature end after an accident in 2009, two years after starring for Nigeria at the 2007 U17 World Cup in Korea said Shehu should have done better in the build up to both goals conceded by Nigeria.
Shehu started and completed the entire game for Nigeria and despite having a not too bad game, Joshua believed he should have averted the issues that led to both goals from his role as the right full back of the team.
” The primary cause of both goals conceded by Nigeria has to be Shehu Abdullahi. Firstly he should have prevented the cross which led to the corner kick from which Croatia scored. Simple logic stop the cross from coming in. Sadly he didn’t do that”, Joshua told Owngoalnigeria.com.
“For the second goal as much as we want to blame William Troost-Ekong for inexplicably grabbing Mario Mandzukic. Shehu shouldn’t have put that ball out of touch for the corner kick that led to the incident.
” He ( Shehu) wasn’t under any pressure. He should have been confident enough to knock it upwards or even out of a touch for a throw in. I blame him for both goals because he had done his primary job, the goals would have been prevented”.
Ade Emmanuel
