Super Eagles forward Kelechi Iheanacho was absent from the pre-match press conference ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations semi-final against South Africa, as his rift with head coach Jose Peseiro continues.
Iheanacho is yet to play a single minute at the ongoing tournament in Ivory Coast.
Peseiro had claimed that the Leicester City man’s lack of playing time was due to recovery from injury.
However, the likes of Iheanacho, Terem Moffi, Ahmed Musa, Bruno Onyemaechi, etc have not featured at all.
CAF had announced that Iheanacho would appear alongside Peseiro for the press conference ahead of the clash against Bafana Bafana. But the player was nowhere to be found. Instead, Ola Aina showed up to answer questions.
Soccernet reports that Iheanacho’s absence from the presser stems from his dissatisfaction with his limited playing time during the tournament, despite initially being scheduled to attend alongside coach Peseiro.
There are speculations that Peseiro is struggling to integrate Iheanacho into his preferred 3-4-3 system, preferring to introduce defensive substitutes rather than attacking ones during games.