Finidi urges Eagles to adopt Chelsea’s formation

Nigeria football legend, George Finidi has urged the Super Eagles to play as a unit and adopt the Chelsea winning formation at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Gernot Rohr’s men open their campaign at the Mundial with a game against Croatia on Saturday and the former Real Betis winger is wary of their midfield trio Luka Modric, Mateo Kovacic and Ivan Rakitic.

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“The Eagles have to play as a unit because they don’t do that at the moment,” Finidi told Channels Sports.

“You can see that when they attack, it takes them too long to get back and that leaves a lot of space in the middle. And you don’t want to do that against Modric, Kovacic and Rakitic – these guys are playing top flight football.

“We just have to get a good grip of the midfield and with that we have a chance.”

Finidi who played at both the USA 94’ and France 98’ World Cups for Nigeria has advised the Super Eagles to play with the formation that helped Antonio Conte deliver the premier league crown for Chelsea in his debut season in England.

“It depends on what formation they want to play. If they want to play a triangular midfield, Mikel should be directly playing in front of the back four, Ndidi playing on the left side and Victor Moses playing on the right side,” the former Ajax star stated.

“If they are playing the diamond formation, somebody playing in front of Moses and Ndidi, and try to make sure we make use of the fullbacks.

“I will go for the Chelsea formation, the 1-3-5-2, two wide players, three players in midfield.”

Asked if the friendly results will affect the Eagles confidence at the World Cup, Finidi replied: “Looking at the Eagles friendlies, Personally, I prefer to have results like this before going to the World Cup so it will motivate the players. Because if they’ve won all the game they will be too confident going to the World Cup.’

“We lost a few games to Yugoslavia and Netherlands going to the 98′ but we went to the World Cup full of confidence and won against Spain. So, the Super Eagles going to the World Cup with few bad results is not too bad. I just hope against Croatia they are going to do their best and work for one another.”