Augustine Eguavoen has acknowledged that he gambled in the closing minutes of his side's 1-1 draw with Ghana in a 2022 World Cup playoff at the MKO Abiola Stadium last Tuesday.

Nigeria had as many as five players classed as strikers on the pitch for the last five minutes, with Odion Ighalo, Ahmed Musa, Sadiq Umar and Moses Simon joining Victor Osimhen.

Eguavoen has explained that the aforementioned players were brought on to help find a winning goal that would have taken the national team to Qatar as one of Africa's five representatives.

Simon and Musa were given a brief of launching crosses into the box for the tall strikers Osimhen and Sadiq to attack.

When asked whether he gambled in the closing minutes, Eguavoen said on SuperSport's Monday Night Football monitored by allnigeriasoccer.com : "Yes because we had to resort to a back three where we now had defensive midfielders sitting maybe one or two and then add more strikers and then we can play from the side because Sadiq is quite tall, Osimhen is fast, tall and energetic as well, very quick.

"If we had more numbers in attack and then play the ball wide, and get crosses in, sometimes reverse pass to the midfield player to run in, that's also a possibility but you cannot continue to play with a back four or five when you know you have to win the game. We just needed one more goal."

William Troost-Ekong cancelled out Thomas Partey's strike in the first half but Ghana progressed to the 2022 World Cup on the away goal rule.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel