Despite back to back defeats in the international friendly matches under new head Coach Jose Peseiro, Super Eagles CB, William Troost-Ekong insists the real tests will come in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers and the team will be ready then.
Nigeria narrowly lost 1-0 to Ecuador, three days after another defeat to Mexico (2-1), both games were the first set under head Coach Peseiro, but the Ekong has argued there is no cause for alarm yet.
Speaking in the post-match presser after Friday’s game, the CB maintains that the time is too short to analyze how well the team can perform under the guidance of the Portuguese Trainer.
The stand-in Super Eagles captain said the team showed much improvement from their first game and expressed “hope” that the progress made will reflect in the “two important” games in the AFCON qualifiers.
“First of all I thought it was a good performance from the boys, bearing in mind that we’ve only been working under our new head Coach for maybe five or six training sessions,” Ekong said in his opening remarks.
“It was an improvement from what we showed against Mexico especially in the first half and I guess a strong Ecuador team.
“I think we gave them a good game and in my opinion, I think we deserved a little bit more in the end.
“But one thing we definitely wanted to make use of this games is to improve our game and understand what the Coach wants. Of course for us the two important games are the next two we play in Africa, and hopefully we would have got rid of the small mistakes by the time we play against Sierra Leone next week.”
