10 things I would do in the March Fifa window were I Amaju Pinnick

By Ayo Akinfe

[1] Fifa has published its international match calendar up until 2024, so we know that before the end of the season, there is only one one-week window left in March 2020 during which two matches can be played. Amaju Pinnick has to make the maximum use of it

[2] Mr Pinnick has one week between Monday March 23 and Tuesday March 31 2022, to organise two Grade A Fifa friendlies. Bear in mind that the next Fifa window after that is between June 1 and 9 and it is likely that World Cup qualifiers will be played during that break

[3] We have the nucleus of a good team at the moment and in my opinion, all we really need to do is get everybody fit and sort out three positions in the team, then we are good to go. I believe Mr Pinnick and Coach Rohr have the two March dates to sort this out. They should play games that will expose the team's frailties and then work on them when the Eagles reconvene in June

[4] Football will always be a subjective matter, so a country like Nigeria will always have 200m coaches but alas, the buck stops with Gernot Rohr on team tactics and selection. I actually think his 4-3-3 is well suited to his players but he just needs to make a few changes, especially with the way they defend. Our Eagles were exposed by Benin Republic and Lesotho, so in my opinion, Mr Rohr needs to try and get his defence a bit tighter

[5] Given that league games are likely to continue until Sunday March 22, I would suggest that Mr Rohr gets his team to camp in London at their usual Cobham training camp. That way, players do not have to travel far and by the evening of Monday March 23, everyone should be in camp

[6] If you look at the games against the Ukraine and Lesotho, you will notice that out Eagles had to deal with intimidating home crowds. I want us to play our next match in another arena with a hostile crowd, cheering on the home side, so our boys are fully geared up for this when they start their World cup travels. I would subsequently suggest to Mr Pinnick that we play Wales at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in March Tuesday 24. This stadium takes 74,000 people and Wales are on a high at the moment after qualifying for Euro 2020, so that match would be an ideal test

[7] If everyone is in camp by the evening of Sunday March 22, the Eagles can have one training session in the morning of Monday March 23 and then fly from Heathrow to Cardiff that evening. They will then rest overnight and be ready to take to the pitch the next day Tuesday March 24

[8] Given that we are among the top 10 African seeds, our World Cup qualification group is going to include one of the second seeded teams like Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, South Africa, Cape Verde, Zambia, Gabon, Congo or Madagascar. The third team in our group could be someone like Madagascar, Angola, Kenya, Togo, Rwanda, Lesotho, Or Equatorial Guinea, while the fourth team could be Ethiopia, Liberia or Gambia. We must be prepared for an almighty fight because for all these teams, playing Nigeria is their World Cup final

[9] These are all battling teams who just run, run, and run. Nigeria will attract all the scours to their stadia and offer a shop window to their players, so for them, it will be the mother of all battles. I thus think our second match should be against a similar team. As we do not want to go far, I would suggest we play a team not too far away from Wales, so we can fly there from Cardiff under two hours. Maybe a short trip to Holland for a game against the Netherlands on March Sunday March 29. Alternatively, next door Belgium would also do fine

[10] For me, the biggest headaches Mr Rohr faces at the moment are nailing down the two fullback positions and finding a playmaker. For now, I take the view that if Tyronne Ebuehi is fully fit, he is out best fullback, with Ola Aina playing as our left fullback, If we can get Ebere Eze as a playmaker, I think all we then need to do is get the team to work as a cohesive unit. With Uzoho back in action and the likes of Ndidi, Aribo, Kalu, Chukwueze and Osimhen at their best, we should be a handful for any team, if we can sort out our defensive frailties.

My Ideal team is:

*****************Osimhen****************

******Kalu************Chukwueze******

*******************Ebere******************

*********Ndidi**************Aribo*********

***Aina****Ekong****Ajayi****Ebuehi***

*********************Uzoho****************

Making this function as one cohesive unit is now the task at hand. We should tray and get half of the job done during the January transfer window.