Asante Kotoko seem to have gotten a full house ahead of the second round of the 2016/2017 Ghana Premier League.
According to captain Amos Frimpong (AF), injury lay-offs contributed to the relatively poor showing in the first round.
All the injured players are back now, he told 3 Sports in an interview with Michael Oti Adjei (MA).
Find transcript of the interview below:
MA: Amos is there a lot of pressure on you guys?
AF: There is no pressure on us, it’s part of football, sometimes you win, sometimes you draw and sometimes you lose. The bad performance we had in the first round, we have kept it behind us. We are looking forward for the second round and we hope to do better.
MA: Is it a bit destabilizing for you players that you have had to go through with so many coaches already, three (3) in fact?
AF: The managers want the best for the team, for instance Coach Luga came and things didn’t go well for him and management decided to bring Coach Frimpong Manso. When he also came in, things weren’t so good for us. Now it’s Steve Pollack and with him I know with the experience he has, he will help us to do better in the second round as compared to the first round
MA: You mentioned 3 coaches now, some people think the problem is the players, and do you players feel you have the larger responsibility in fixing this challenge?
AF: Sometimes you play your best but your performance won’t show. In the first round, we had a couple of injury in our team. I can say that caused the team not to play the way we wanted to play. Coming into the second round most of the guys are around and we are praying for an injury free second round and I know with that we can do well.
MA: Do you players go out playing with the fear of almost losing because of the way people react?
AF: You know Kotoko is a result-oriented team and any time they want a win. Even in friendly matches, they demand results from us. I think it’s part of the game they always want us to win. If we don’t win they put pressure on us. All the same we always have it in the back of our heads that we have to make them proud. If you win for them they will call you and give you sort of items. When the losses come, they will shout on you. I think it’s fairly normal. It’s part of the game and we are used to it. We know if we do better they will rather praise us.