Steven Frimpong Manso, a former coach of Kumasi Asante Kotoko has praised the current coach of the club, Charles Kwablan Akonnor for steering the team into the group stage of the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) Confederation Cup competition.
Coach Frimpong Manso said in an interview with the GNA Sports that, it would be unfair for anyone to blame coach Akonnor for the team’s exit at the group stage.
He said Akonnor must rather be supported considering how he managed to take the team to that stage of the competition in the face of all the setbacks.
“I believe that, to take a team to Africa without any competitive league and being able to go this far, means they have done well, although they could have done better than what they did,” he said.
“No one must blame CK. I think he has done so well because most of the problems the team faced cannot be solved in this short period. Maybe if they had a longer period to prepare, some of these things could have manifested earlier and they could have addressed it. For me I think he has done well”.
The former Black Satellites coach urged the Porcupine Warriors to pick the positives from the competition and do a comprehensive analysis of their performance before taking any major decision.
He said there was the need for additions in certain areas such as the defence and attack to augment the team.
“I think they should look at the entire situation and analyse all the games that they played. Where they felt short, especially in the defence I believe they would need to reinforce it, but also need to beef up the midfield and attack.
“They still need to invest in the squad if they want to conquer Africa.”
Asante Kotoko failed to advance from Group C of the CAF Confederation Cup, having placed third in the group with seven points.
Meanwhile, Kotoko arrived in Ghana yesterday after their exit from the competition.
They needed a win to qualify to the quarter-finals of the competition but surrendered a 1-0 lead in the opening minutes of the second half to lose the game by 2-1.
The team after arriving at the Kotoka International Airport at noon continued their journey to Kumasi to start preparations for the upcoming Normalisation Committee Special Competition.
Three of the players of the Kotoko, Amos Frimpong, Kwame Bonsu and Felix Annan have, however, joined the Black Stars. –GNA
