Former Arsenal Player Kanu Nwankwo Reacts To Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori Playing For England

Former Arsenal forward Kanu Nwankwo has given his opinion on Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori's rejecting to play for their native country, Nigeria, only to accept England manager Gareth Southgate's call up for Euro 2020 qualifiers against the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

Tammy received a pleasant offer of regular appearance in the Super Eagles from the Nigerian Football Federation president, Amaju Pinnick, who also was his father's childhood friend, but the Chelsea striker did not respond to the call and chose to play for England instead.

Likewise Tomori, who had made 15 caps for England Under 21 and was expected to favor his native having being linked with the Super Eagles head coach Gerhor Rohr.

The Chelsea duo's failure to accept playing for Nigerian did not sit well with Kanu who expressed his displeasure in the country's federation to have pleaded with the players to accept their call, rather than players having to "beg" to feature in the national team.

"I feel we don't need to force people to play for the country cos Nigeria is bigger than any player," said in a statement. "We have quality players everywhere so we can't continue to beg one player to play for us. Nigeria cannot beg, players have to beg Nigeria."

At the moment, Tammy is in incredible form at Chelsea having scored eight goals in all competitions, he scored his first continental goal for the club in a 2-1 away win over LOSC on in the Champions League group stage match on Tuesday - Fikayo also featured in the match.

Kanu is a Champions League title (1994/95) and EUFA Super Cup (1995) winner with Ajax in and also won twice with Arsenal the Premier League and FA Cup.