By Daily Sports on March 28, 2018

Aleksandar Mitrovic’s second-half brace secured a 2-0 win for Serbia against a disappointing Nigeria at The Hive in London on Tuesday.

Nigeria’s Super Eagles were brought back down to earth by a quality Serbia side in the absence of skipper Mikel Obi, who also missed last Friday’s 1-0 friendly win against Poland.

In both games, the Eagles struggled to keep possession of the ball for any meaningful number of minutes and it should be clear to the Eagles technical crew that without someone like Mikel, a midfielder with the guile and ability to hold on to possession, Nigeria will struggle in games.

The Super Eagles made four changes to the team that beat Poland 1-0 in Wroclaw on Friday, with the quartet of Tyronne Ebuehi, Chidozie Awaziem, Ogenyi Onazi and Ahmed Musa introduced to the line-up.

However, the changes served to undermine Nigeria's intensity, and their showing was a far cry from the high pressing and dynamism of recent fixtures.

Mitrovic might have opened his account in the first half, but his effort was ruled out despite his header appearing to cross the line before Francis Uzoho desperately scrambled to gather.

It was the second time in four days the Eagles had a controversial goal-line decision go in their favour.

Uzoho did well to save from Mitrovic, Dusan Tadic and Branislav Ivanovic, and the youngster looked poised to preserve a third successive clean sheet in the green-and-white of Nigeria until the on-loan Fulham forward's late intervention.

Mitrovic broke the deadlock in the 68th minute with a composed finish, and added a second - exploiting some poor defending on behalf of the West Africans – in the 81st minute as Nigeria pressed forward in search of an equaliser.

Nigeria’s best chance fell to Victor Moses, as the Chelsea wing-back forced Vladimir Stojkovic into a smart save at the death.

The defeat was only the second defeat of Gernot Rohr’s tenure, and the German tactician will surely have learned a lot from the performance of some of his peripheral players in their loss against the Eastern Europeans.

•Additional reporting from ESPN. Photo shows Serbian two-goal hero Aleksandar Mitrovic

Source Daily Sports

Posted March 28, 2018

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