Ghana coach, Claude Le Roy has given Michael Essien high ratings and believes the Black Stars midfielder’s sterling display at 2008 African Nations Cup should have won him the tournament’s Best Player award.

After 32 matches at the Nations Cup, Egypt’s Hosny Abd Rabou was adjudged the tournament’s Best Player by the Technical Study Group (TSG).

Essien, who helped Ghana to claim a third-place, finished off the competition with two MVP awards, two goals and a Fair-Play award after an inspiring six-match performance for the Black Stars.

And such a performance is certainly what Claude Le Roy expected to have secured his midfielder the coveted award.

“For me Essien was by far the best player of the tournament and the second best player was Sulley Muntari,” Le Roy told the official newspaper of the Ghana Football Association, GFA News.

Le Roy, who missed the chance to win a personal second Nations Cup title and a fifth for the Black Stars believes Ghana deserved more than two picks for the Africa XI selection announced after the tournament.

The Black Stars coach argues that John Mensah and Nations Cup debutant, Junior Agogo deserved places on the list.

“It will be always difficult to name the best defenders in the world and not name John Mensah let alone Africa.

“In this tournament, he did very well to be among the best eleven.

“I think Junior Agogo should also have been there,” Le Roy said.

The Ghana coach also questions the selection process that named Michael Essien and Sulley Muntari as defenders on the Africa XI team list though both are offensive players.

“I don’t know how the people (technical study group) arrived at the choice.

“If you look at the best eleven players of the tournament, you can see that Michael was selected as a defender and Sulley as a left back. That raises a lot of questions on the competence of the people who made the choice.”