By Our Reporter
GEORGES Leekens has blasted the assistant referee from Gambia for not ruling out Nigeria's second goal scored by captain John MIkel Obi in the 3-1 victory over Algeria in Saturday's World Cup qualifiers in Uyo.
NaijaSportsXtra.blogspot.com gathered from the Belgian post match comment published by an Algerian newspaper, LeButeur.
Mikel who scored his 5th international goal in the green jersey in the 42nd minute was thought to be offside after receiving a pass from Oghenekaro Etebo.
The Chelsea midfielder who was unmarked looked and noticed that the asistant ref's flag had stayed down, he had no choice than to tuck the ball into the left bottom corner of the Algerian goal.
"Nigeria's second goal is not valid. There scorer was indeed in an offside position. The assistant referee did not raise his flag, said Leekens who replaced Milovan Rejevac less than two weeks ago.
The goal, some how demoralized my players as they were preparing to go into the dressing after the half time whistle.
We had a better second half and am proud of what they did in spite of the defeat. They tried to come back.
Everyone saw what we did, the players raised their game.
They had a strong desire to come back in the game despite a 2-goal lead, then we Bentaleb scored a superb goal and that gave us hope.
But unfortunately, the lack of efficiency got us penalized as the 3rd goal came in and that was where we lost all chance of coming back in that game. "
