{"id":157235,"date":"2025-03-30T22:20:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T21:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase"},"modified":"2025-04-04T14:56:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T13:56:36","slug":"npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase","title":{"rendered":"NPFL: Rangers boss Ilechukwu gives up on title chase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Rangers technical adviser, Fidelis Ilechukwu, has given up on his team\u2019s chances of defending the Nigeria Premier Football League, NPFL, title.<\/p>\n<p>The Flying Antelopes won the NPFL title last season but now sit 15 points behind league leaders Remo Stars.<\/p>\n<p>Fidelis Ilechukwu\u2019s side suffered their 10th defeat of the campaign against Plateau United last week.<\/p>\n<p>Ilechukwu attributed his team\u2019s struggles to injuries and the departure of key players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no problem with Rangers\u2014it\u2019s just football. Even Manchester City are the English Premier League defending champions, but ask yourself, what is happening there now?\u201d Ilechukwu told Complete Sports.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery team faces challenges. Right now, we are using our third set of midfielders. We\u2019ve lost many players to injuries\u2014Kazeem Ogunleye and some strikers too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose playing now were meant to be gradually integrated into the squad, but football forced us to accelerate their development. They\u2019ve tried, but they haven\u2019t converted the chances they got.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Rangers technical adviser, Fidelis Ilechukwu, has given up on his team\u2019s chances of defending the Nigeria Premier Football League, NPFL, title. The Flying Antelopes won the NPFL title last season but now sit 15 points behind league leaders Remo Stars. Fidelis Ilechukwu\u2019s side suffered their 10th defeat of the campaign against Plateau [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":157234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[8883,254,579],"class_list":["post-157235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-ilechukwu","tag-nigeria","tag-npfl"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>NPFL: Rangers boss Ilechukwu gives up on title chase - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rangers technical adviser, Fidelis Ilechukwu, has given up on his team\u2019s chances of defending the Nigeria Premier Footba ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NPFL: Rangers boss Ilechukwu gives up on title chase\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rangers technical adviser, Fidelis Ilechukwu, has given up on his team\u2019s chances of defending the Nigeria Premier Footba ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-30T21:20:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-04T13:56:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/03\/sm_1743361370.534621.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"NPFL: Rangers boss Ilechukwu gives up on title chase\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-30T21:20:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-04T13:56:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase\"},\"wordCount\":182,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/03\/sm_1743361370.534621.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Ilechukwu\",\"Nigeria\",\"NPFL\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sport\/npfl-rangers-boss-ilechukwu-gives-up-on-title-chase\",\"name\":\"NPFL: Rangers boss Ilechukwu gives up on title chase - 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