Asante Kotoko will hope to register their first win of the Ghana Premier League (GPL) season as they face Legon Cities today at the Accra Sports Stadium in a match day five game.
The game which kicks off at 6pm is a must-win for Maxwell Konadu in his bid to transform the Accra Stadium – temporal home venue of the ‘Porcupine Warriors’- into a no-go area for opponents.
In the same fixture earlier this year, Asante Kotoko who played as visitors secured a comfortable 3-1 win over the ‘Royals’.
A repeat of a similar score line by the Porcupines would be fiercely resisted by the Royals who now have former Asante coach Bashir Hayford and Ghana’s all time goal scorer Asamoah Gyan in their fold .
Since Hayford took over as coach of Cities following the dismissal of Serbian trainer Goran Barjakterevic after Cities’ 3-0 loss to Olympics, the Royals have exhibited signs of improvement.
A goalless draw against Dreams at Dawu preceded by the same results against Medeama in Accra proved that ‘Coach Bash’ was on a redemption mission with the Royals.
He would be excited about the prospects of Gyan starting as he provides that goal scoring threat missing in their game.
After making two appearances as a substitute in their last two games the Ghanaian legend may be considered to start against Kotoko – a team he nearly joined before making a u-turn to Cities.
Unfortunately Coach Bash would miss young whiz kid Matthew Anim Cudjoe who is on national assignment with the U-20 team in Benin.
Equally, Kotoko have not been sharp in front of goal, scoring two and conceding two out of their two games played and would hope a win would set the right tone for their tricky outstanding games in Tarkwa against Medeama and in Accra against Olympics later this month.
BY NANA BENTSI ODURO
