{"id":27342,"date":"2019-03-22T16:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T15:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/?p=27342"},"modified":"2019-03-22T16:00:05","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T15:00:05","slug":"mikel-not-ready-for-eagles-return-%e2%80%95rohr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/mikel-not-ready-for-eagles-return-%e2%80%95rohr\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikel not ready for Eagles&#8217; return \u2015Rohr"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Manager Gernot Rohr has revealed that John Obi Mikel has not yet reversed his decision to return to the Super Eagles ahead of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations because of his commitments with Middlesbrough, who are battling for a playoff spot.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The former Bayern Munich defender stressed that he has not\nshut the door on Mikel as his experience is vital to the relatively young Super\nEagles squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the absence of the Chelsea legend since the end of the 2018 World Cup, Alex Iwobi has functioned as a playmaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ALSO READ:   <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/world-cup-experience-will-help-eagles-at-afcon-%e2%80%95ahmed-musa\/\"><strong>World Cup experience will help Eagles at AFCON \u2015Ahmed Musa <\/strong><\/a><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Rohr said: &#8221;He\nhas so many games in Middlesbrough to look forward to, they are fighting for\nthe playoff too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8221;He told me it is not the moment to return but if Obi Mikel\nis very fit again and has the motivation, and shows that he is better than the\nother people we have, the door is open for everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8221;I am not like Joachim Low who announced officially that three of his players are definitely out of the German national team, I never say that because you never know what can happen, you can have injuries, and you can have great performances from the players who are returning from injuries.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ALSO READ:   <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/rohr-questions-iheanachos-attitude\/\"><strong>Rohr questions Iheanacho\u2019s attitude <\/strong><\/a><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rohr continued: &#8221;We are watching and will see if he can\ncome back. We also need experience in our team, we have so many young players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8221;Again, I think they are younger than the last list so the\nexperience of such a player could be interesting.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manager Gernot Rohr has revealed that John Obi Mikel has not yet reversed his decision to return to the Super Eagles ahead of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations because of his commitments with Middlesbrough, who are battling for a playoff spot. The former Bayern Munich defender stressed that he has not shut the door [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":27343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,84],"tags":[343,1731,80,194],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Mikel-Obi-with-Gernot-Rohr.jpg?fit=450%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd18y-770","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportingtribune.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}