By Kate Obodo
Former Green  Eagles winger,   Adokie Amiesimaka has called on the Super Eagles coach Shaibu Amodu to plug the gaping holes in the team if they are to defeat Tunisia in the World Cup qualifier in Tunis next Saturday.

GOAL: Ikechukwu Uche (l) swerves a Kenyan defender on his way to scoring Super Eagles’ first goal in their 3-0 pounding of the Harambee Stars at the Abuja National Stadium last Sunday. Photo by Gbemiga Olamikan.

The former Sharks of Port Harcourt chairman believes the Tunisian side would be more difficult to play because they are a better side compared to the Harambee Stars of Kenya, stressing that the Eagles showed element of complacency in their play  in the Abuja match.

“We should appreciate that the Tunisians  are a competent side. In our team, there are gaping holes and by that I mean, attitudinal problem, not going into a match with 100 per cent commitment. That was our biggest problem. We have the players but they are not 100 percent committed”, he said.

In a telephone chat with Saturday Vanguard, the former Green Eagles winger said the “Eagles should expect a vociferous crowd like what they saw in Abuja. They should expect Tunisia to come out and attack, so our Eagles should be ready to counter attack, if they do that we should be able to have a good result in Tunisia.”

Amiesimaka described the match against Kenya as woeful but with a good result. “The play was woeful against Kenya, but we had a good result. The Kenyans played as if they were at home.  The moment we scored, our players went to sleep and allowed the Kenyans to dominate play.

Our midfield was too weak and we can not expect to do that against Tunisia”, he said.  “Tunisia is the  only Africa champion  to be at Korea/ Japan 2002 and repeat this same outing in 2006 so they are not the  side  that can be underrated. We have a long history with Tunisia.

They  stopped us from  going to  the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. Currently they are topping our table and we should appreciate that fact. We are not a  bad side either. We have done very well too. I spoke  with Amodu and he confirmed some lapses and said he was going to address them.

We still need Nwankwo Kanu in the team, despite what people are saying. We still need Mikel Obi no matter his erratic attitude, we need him in the team.

I don’t think there was a problem with selection. The biggest problem  was commitment. If the players had  more commitment, we could have scored more goals . The good thing about Amodu is that he is sending the message that no player is indepensable.