Blow for Super Eagles as Osimhen, Dennis ruled out of AFCON

Super Eagles have confirmed that they will be without star forwards Victor Osimhen and Emmanuel Dennis for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) billed to commence on January 9th.

After a drawn out saga between Osimhen and his Italian club Napoli, it was finally confirmed that the 23-year-old striker will play no part in the tournament for the Super Eagles.

Osimhen, who only recently recovered from a severe facial fracture, tested positive for COVID-19 in Lagos, where he is spending the break, just a day before he was due to travel to Italy for his final fitness test that would have cleared him to participate in the tournament. This development forced his Italian club to postpone his test indefinitely, thus ruling him out of the tournament.

Osimhen’s place in the Super Eagles AFCON squad has been taken by Olympiacos winger Henry Onyekuru.

Watford striker Emmanuel Dennis will also play no part of the AFCON tournament for the Super Eagles after an administrative error on the part of the NFF.

The NFF failed to notify Watford of their consideration of the striker for the tournament during the time allotted for the notification, and sent an email to notify the club late. The club thus had the choice to prevent Dennis from making the trip with the national side.

As a result of Dennis’s withdrawal, Slavia Prague striker Peter Olayinka has been invited as his replacement for the tournament.

The duo of Leon Balogun and Abdullahi Shehu have also pulled out of the Super Eagles squad due to injury problems, and have both been replaced by West Bromwich Albion defender Semi Ajayi and Venezia star Tyrone Ebuehi.

Super Eagles will kick off their campaign against the Pharaohs of Egypt on January 11th with many of the side’s stars missing, but the players available for Austin Eguavoen should still do the job.