NPFL: Niger Tornadoes gave us headache, says Rivers United’s Stanley Eguma

By Saheed Afolabi

Head coach of Rivers United, Stanley Eguma says Niger Tornadoes put up a brave fight in their 2-1 victory in a Nigeria Premier Football League encounter in Port-Harcourt.

Duru Ebube’s free kick was all the defending champions required to guarantee their third successive victory of the season as Rivers United were able to scale past Niger Tornadoes with all the goals coming in the first half.

And the former assistant coach of the defunct Dolphins of Port-Harcourt said the adopted long balls tactics of Niger Tornadoes almost ripped his team apart as it was hell for his defenders to deal with it.

“It was a very tough game I must confess, Niger Tornadoes came with a lot of hope due to the fact that they were unbeaten before this time, and after we scored the first goal, because we applied so much pressure on them,” Eguma told media.

“We played a lot of conventional passes in the final third, and make sure that they were under severe pressure and that goal came, they equalized through the penalty against the run of play but I think I give them that kudos for rising to the occasion and I must say that in the second half we didn’t have a good game.

“Their tactics was a problem to us because they are playing a lot of long balls and it affected my defense because they have to be on their toes all the time and running, they didn’t allow us to play our normal game where we were supposed to have a compact midfield because the game was moving from the final third to the first third, so it didn’t help matters at all.

“It was a very dangerous tactic, but I think, our players, I give them kudos for fighting back to put the winner through that beautiful freekick from Ebube. I think it was a good game for us because it has bring back hope to the team.

“I like the way the players are playing because they are not relaxing because they are champions last season, they still believe they can do what they did last year or even do better and that’s why you can see them fighting from all cylinders.”

When asked about the defiencies in his team, Eguma admits he still has a lot to do to shape up the striking role of the club so that missed chances will be a thing of the past.

“I think one thing we are lacking in attack is conversion of chances because the players we have now most of them are new ones coming in, you know we lost two goal scorers last season, the highest goal scorer in the league and the second highest goal scorer in the team, we lost them and it’s difficult for us, we are trying to work on new players to make sure we put them back into scoring form and that’s what we are doing now, with time we will get it right.

“All our conversion chances that we are loosing, we will get them right. It’s a big problem but we are working on it, it’s our job, we lost Rafiu Ishaq and Chijioke last season and it’s a big vacuum that it has created and we have not really replaced them, but with time, we will be able to work on the new players and work them into shape were they can be scoring freely.”