Super Eagles: Why Paul Onuachu must feature in Nigeria’s September AFCON qualifiers

Super Eagles head coach Eric Chelle is days away from confirming his squad for the upcoming AFCON 2027 qualifiers, but Paul Onuachu is still a doubt, Afrik-Foot reports.

The Trabzonspor striker ended a 151-day Süper Lig goal drought with a brace inside 22 minutes in Sunday’s 5-0 destruction of Gençlerbirliği, restoring confidence and his place in new head coach Hüseyin Çimşir’s plans.

His previous Süper Lig goal came in the 2-1 win at Galatasaray in April. While he played just 44 minutes in that game, Onuachu picked up an injury, but his coach has clarified that there’s nothing to worry about.

“I don’t think it’s anything serious. There’s no problem,” the 47-year-old said in quotes revealed by Fanatik.

“I tried to talk to everyone, not just Onuachu specifically. But sometimes strikers can get under pressure to score. I told him that today too.

“He was getting into positions, but couldn’t score. He was going to score one day, and he did today. I seriously think he contributed to this team last year as well.

“He’s one of our important players. We have this kind of weapon. I think he can score even more goals, especially when we connect him with crosses from the flanks,” Hüseyin Cimsir concluded.

Why Paul Onuachu must make Super Eagles squad

1. The timing of Onuachu’s form

The first argument is timing. Eric Chelle spent the March and June international windows monitoring several players outside of the major first-team names.

With Victor Osimhen out of the September AFCON 2027 qualifiers due to a groin injury, the head coach’s attacking unit looks very unpredictable.

Onuachu’s brace against Gençlerbirliği could not have arrived at a better moment, as he looks like the next player in line to take up the role vacated by the Galatasaray striker.

2. Chelle’s 4-3-1-2 can be built structurally around Onuachu’s profile

The second reason is tactical. Chelle’s preferred 4-3-1-2 (4-4-2 diamond) produced 14 goals in Nigeria’s AFCON 2025 campaign, and was built around a striker partnership where both forwards worked off each other.

It involved an aerial target man drawing opposition centre-backs and creating space for a mobile finisher. Osimhen filled the finisher role while Akor Adams sacrificed his goalscoring to help balance the attack. The chemistry of that pairing carried Nigeria to a bronze medal in Morocco.

Adams remains the settled second-striker option. The vacancy is at the target-man end, and Onuachu is comfortably the closest profile match in the current forward pool.

At 2.01m tall, he offers the physical presence, aerial dominance and hold-up play that Osimhen used to provide, and his goal-scoring is solid, only that he doesn’t offer Osimhen’s pressing abilities. No one else does.

The alternatives all bring compromise. Tolu Arokodare is the same profile, and then there’s Cyriel Dessers, who’s in form at Panathinaikos, but has no chemistry yet with the front-line group Chelle is building around.

Onuachu is the only realistic direct Osimhen-role successor, considering he played alongside Akor Adams in Nigeria’s third-place AFCON 2025 fixture against Egypt.

With the former Southampton striker fit and back in form, the decision is a pretty easy one for Super Eagles coach Eric Chelle.