Nigeria coach Daniel Ogunmodede has defended their decision to call up former Rangers flop Sadiq Umar ahead of current Ibrox striker Cyriel Dessers...despite him scoring just one goal in a whole year.
Dessers has had plenty of criticism this season for missing chances for Rangers, but had still scored nine goals this season in 19 appearances in all competitions, including the midweek equaliser against Olympiacos in the Europa League in Athens.
But he's not been called up for his country since March and has been unable to add to his six caps.
Nigeria this week named their squad for their Africa Cup of Nations qualifying fixtures against Benin Republic and Rwanda and recalled Umar, who had an unsuccessful loan spell at Rangers under Steve Gerrard six years ago.
Read more:
He's scored just one single goal for his club Real Sociedad since last November...and that was back in March and the decision to include Umar over Dessers was met with derision by local media.
But Nigeria's assistant manager Daniel Ogunmodede defended the selection of caretaker boss Augustine Eguavoen.
He said: "The manager has come up with a list, discussed it with us, his backroom staff and I think they are competent and capable of representing the country.
“Sadiq had been in the team for a while and was also out due to injury now he’s back and the coach felt we needed a striker like him.
"He looked at other strikers too and had his reasons for picking his names in the squad."
