Nigeria's caretaker manager Augustine Eguavoen has explained why he named nine players classed as strikers by the Nigeria Football Federation on a 25-man roster for the upcoming 2022 World Cup playoff against Ghana.

The 1994 Africa Cup of Nations winner clarified that these nine players are capable of playing in forward positions but not all of them are out-and-out centre forwards, with some wingers and attacking midfielders part of the group.

The Super Eagles invitees classed as strikers have been firing on all cylinders for their respective clubs heading into the fixture against the Black Stars with 86 goals combined at club level.

Former Manchester United striker Odion Ighalo is in good form with his best-ever scoring tally in a single season with 22 goals and the next on the list is Osimhen with 15 goals in all competitions, followed by Almeria goal poacher Umar Sadiq with 16 and Watford star Emmanuel Dennis 9.

Eguavoen is delighted that he has a number of quality attacking options to choose from against Ghana.

On why he called up nine 'strikers', Eguavoen told Ghanaian journalist Juliet Bawuah : "Because we like to play attacking football, all nine are not going to play at the same time anyway.

"When you talk of nine strikers, actually it is not nine strikers because if you have nine strikers you don't have a balance in your team so most of those players are side midfielders.

"The actual strikers we have there are Ighalo, Sadiq, Osimhen, Iheanacho who comes from behind.

"The good thing is that they are all injury free, we pray they stay like that and they are in good form, and it's an added advantage adding value to the team which is quite good."

If the Super Eagles final training session before their trip to Kumasi is anything to go by, Osimhen has been chosen to lead the line against the Black Stars.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel