I have been prompted to write this article after Sundays disastrous performance of the Black Stars against Mali. Indeed these thoughts have occupied me for some time now. I seriously believe that Ghanaians are under a strong delusion that we have a good team that is capable of winning the African Cup of Nations in Angola and even the World Cup.
Well my opinion is that this is a big lie we continue to tell ourselves; we have a poor team and the earlier we get serious on working the team the better for all of us. The team from Goalkeeping to Attack lacks quality at the moment and even our midfield which was touted as one of the best midfields in the world prior to the 2006 World Cup has lost its quality i.e if we continue the midfield partnership of Stephen Appiah,Michael Essien, Laryea Kingston and Sulley Muntari.
Our team has no one who can hold on to the ball and beat 1,2 or 3 players at a time and who can turn a game around at any moment; till date we do not know how to effect freekicks, corners, throwins or even penalties, no player in our team knows how to do these things;again, we have no clinical finisher cast in the mould of even a Salomon Kalou or even a Berbatov not to talk of a Didier Drogba,Samuel Eto'o or a Fernando Torres. It is hard to see how such a team lacking all these qualities and essentials can perform at high level.
In Goalkeeping, we all know that Richard Kingston is growing, yet till date we have not been able to find any credible replacement for him or even a credible competitor. Maybe this is because we have not had the patience to groom such goalkeepers as Owu,Sammy Adjei and lately William Amamoo. Again as we are all aware of, Olele is not getting match time in Wigan. Since he moved there he has been third Goalkeeper at best and unless we want to prove nature wrong, this would ineveitably mean a loss of form. We cant afford to have a No.1 Goalkeeper who is always on the bench and dream of winning any credible trophy.
In the defence, I find no problem with our right full back apart from the fact that Paintsil seems to have taken that position as his property because even though we have quality players like Incoom, Aziz Ansah etc. who can play there, paintsil plays as long as he is around. Apart from the right however, the rest of the defence is poor and cannot stand the test of time. In the left full back position, Harrison Afful seems to be the only credible potential we have. Even with Afful, we have had numerous occassions to question his overlaps and his recovery rate while his size does not also help. In the Centre I am saddened by the fact that though we have quality Central defenders we seem to have forgotten about all of them and stuck to a lucklustre partnership of John Mensah and Eric Addo. Eric Addo at the moment should not even have a place on the bench of the Black Star but because some people are determined to give him a place and because he cannot fit anywhere in the midfield, we have found a place for him in our defence a situation which is very dangerous. Addo has not got a single quality of a good defender and I struggle to find any reason why he should be constantly in the centre of our defence. John Mensah has not been so reliable recently and he struggles when he meets a skillful player. As we are all aware of again, he found it hard to find his mettle at the top of the French League with Lyon and this says a lot about his play.
Stephen Appiah whose real age I put at over 40 is someone who at most should play for 30 minutes. He has done great things for the team but the truth we cant hide is that he has aged and has been affected by his 2year lay off from regular soccer. Simply put, the team has to move on. People are very sentimental when Appiah is mentioned but the question is would Appiah still play for us even after he turns 90? If it is about what he has done for us in the past then I suggest we start calling people like Mohammed Polo, Osei Kofi, Tony Yeboah and Opoku Afriyie who all did greater things for us.
Our central Midfield pair of Michael Essien and Anthony Annan are great but we have huge huge problems with our wings in the players of Sulley Muntari and Laryea Kingston. Sulley is also one person I believe should not be part of the Team not just because he is indisciplined but because he is an on and off player and gives off his best for only 20 or 30 minutes in any game.Sulley is out of the game for most parts of the game, sometimes he is a non-entity for a whole game. Indeed in recent times, Ghana has done great when Sulley is not in the game as he lacks a total sense of urgency in any game he plays for Ghana.
Laryea Kingston is a great player, he is about our only player who can hold on to the ball in our team at the moment but Laryea's over exuberance and disciplinary issues seems to worry us at critial periods in our matches.
As for our Attack, I wont even talk about it because it is disgraceful, lacks any potential though Matthew Amoah sometimes offers few glimpses of hope.
However, I disagree with anyone who says Ghana lacks a quality bench. Indeed, it is my believe that Ghana has quality players who when given the opportunity can perform and perform to the admiration of the whole world.
In Goalkeeping, I struggle again to understand why we are not trying Goalkeepers like Philemon McCarthy of Hearts of Oak,Stephen Ahulu of Hearts of Lions and Isaac Amoako of Kotoko. These Goalkeepers in my honest view are better than any Goalkeeper we have with the possible exception of Richard Kingston. They are all better than George Owu, William Amamoo and Daniel Adjei. They are great Goalkeepers who I have seen make great saves. Indeed, there are more, Goalkeepers like Laud Quartey of Hearts of Oak and Mohammed Alhassan of Eleven Wise are equally capable of keeping the Black Star Post.
In defence we equally have good potentials like Issah Ahmed who continues to play excellently in Denmark, Shilla Illiasu, isaac Vorsah who all have the capability of starting in our first team.
Perhaps our midfield offers the greatest hope with players like Kwadwo Asamoah, Opoku Agyeman, Dede Ayew, Agyeman Badu, Derick Boateng, Moussa Nari etc. offering great hope. Together with Anthony Annan, these players can anytime be in our midfield and perform better than the partnership of Michael Essien, Stephen Appiah, Sulley Muntari and Laryea Kingston. More hope is offered by the likely inclusion of Kelvin Prince Boateng who played for Germany as a teen and jeffrey Sarpong who did same for the Netherlands. They are great players who would transform our team anytime they join.
In attack we dont seem to have great potentials but I believe that players like Eric Bekoe, Papa Arko, Adiyiah and Ransford Osei would on any day perform better than Asamoah Gyan, Prince Tagoe or Agogo. Asamoah Gyan for me is the most useless striker we have ever fielded except Alex Takyi Menson and Pimpong. He doesnt even deserve to play for our under-15 as a striker. The best we can for him is to transform him into a midfielder.
AM DONE.
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