Captain John Mikel Obi has been \u201cexcused\u201d from Nigeria\u2019s latest squad because he needs time to recover from injury, according to the country\u2019s football federation, the NFF.
\nHe was the most notable absentee from the Super Eagles squad for back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers with Libya this month.
\nThe 31-year-old, who plays for Chinese side Tianjin TEDA, has not played for his country since the summer\u2019s World Cup, leading to speculation about his international future.
\nBut he is set to return to the camp for next month\u2019s match with South Africa.
\n\u201cMikel has been excused because he is just recovering from injury in China and needs time to fully regain fitness,\u201d team spokesman Toyin Ibitoye told newsmen.
\n\u201cWe expect him to be available for the November game against South Africa.\u201d
\nCoach Gernot Rohr has made three changes from the Super Eagles squad that took on Seychelles last month with the omission of on-loan Arsenal youngster Kelechi Nwakali, and Italy-based duo of Simeon Nwankwo and Joel Obi.
\nWatford\u2019s Isaac Success has been rewarded for his impressive form with the English side and fit-again Levante forward Moses Simon and Bursaspor of Turkey defender Shehu Abdullahi also earn recalls.
\nThe squad is boosted by the return of Arsenal\u2019s Alex Iwobi, defenders William Troost-Ekong and Ola Aina, after the trio pulled out of September\u2019s fixture due to injury.
\nThe three-time African champions won 3-0 away in Seychelles in last month\u2019s Nations Cup qualifier as they seek to return to the tournament they won in their last appearance in 2013.
\nThey host Libya in Uyo on 13 October and then travel to face the same opposition three days later at Stade Ta\u00efeb Mhiri in Sfax, Tunisia.
\nNigeria began their campaign to qualify for the 2019 Nations Cup in Cameroon with a surprise 2-0 loss to visiting South Africa in June last year.
\nLibya, with four points, are currently top of Group E on goal difference ahead of South Africa, the top two from the four-team pool will qualify for next year\u2019s finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Captain John Mikel Obi has been \u201cexcused\u201d from Nigeria\u2019s latest squad because he needs time to recover from injury, according to the country\u2019s football federation, the NFF. He was the most notable absentee from the Super Eagles squad for back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers with Libya this month. The 31-year-old, who plays for Chinese […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":187060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/187060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}