With claims of the Kotoko leader and Captain running away from duty when they had a penalty yesterday in the match against Ashantigold, loud discussions could be heard among the mediamen present at the Conference Centre of Baba Yara on the issue. There was a strong suspicion the incident in which Amankona chased the Kotoko captain with the ball to take the penalty while he refused to even get closer to the penalty box will form part of the barrage of questions aimed at Kotoko’s coach Prosper Ogum Nartey at the Post Match Conference.
And it happened, with Ogum seemingly already prepared, as his answer depicted later. The coach was in no mood to go around it in explaining anything and quickly dispelled any ideas of Ismail Abdul Ganiu being deposed as Kotoko’s first penalty taker, insisting that he is still the number one choice of the club.
“There is a geographical representation of every player on the pitch at training and matches and what they do at every particular instance. There is a hierarchy of our penalty takers and Ganiu is still our first choice whenever we have penalties “, Ogum emphatically declared.
He further went on to explain what happened on the pitch as not only Ganiu seemed not enthused to take the kick, but other players too. Amankona who seem to be part of the penalty takers also cooly handed over the ball to Frank Thierry Etuoga Mbella, after Ganiu insisted he should take it.
Prosper Ogum explained that in such situations when other players get the confidence to score from the spot and especially whereby such players are in the race for the goal king award, it is only fair to be allowed to take the spot kicks as it adds to their advantage and boost their confidence to do more, something which happened yesterday as the Camerounian Mbella went ahead to score two more goals after slotting home the penalty for Kotoko against regional rivals Ashantigold. The Camerounian import now has 6 goals to his credit in the Ghana Premier League. Kotoko is still leading the league table, even with a match to spend.
By Patricia Adjei Yeboah
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