After seeing Mali undone by Alexander Djiku’s second half strike to give us the points on Monday, Otto Addo gave his thoughts in the post-match press conference.
He spoke about team performance, Kwasi Sibo’s debut appearance our gameplan and more.
Here is everything he had to say:
On the game against Mali
Yeah, some problems, I think, yeah, you could see that we have a young squad and players who haven't been playing often for the national team so far and we were a little bit nervous here and there, but after 50 minutes I think we got good into the game. It was, the game was even, but with a little bit of upper chances for us, so, but it was a, I think, yeah, it was a, it was a deserved draw to halftime and then we, we increased the pressure early in the second half, we managed to score out of a set piece. And then it was pure fight afterwards, especially the last 50 minutes, we had some chances to finish the game, we had counters where we could have scored a second goal, but we couldn't, yeah, get use of these situations and at the end it stayed really, really hot till the last minute and Mali was putting pressure on us, but not really creating chances, just with high balls and shots from 20, 25 metres and I think we really fought well, especially in the pockets thanks to the defence and they really gave their all and defended well and I'm happy that we won.
On decision-making in the final third
No, I think if you have played before, you know that sometimes there's a little bounce from the ball or the position is close and you think too much, I told them actually, but as a footballer, it's normal that you are trying to look for a perfect solution, but sometimes you don't need to get the perfect solution, sometimes you just rip the ball in, even if it's one against three and sometimes the defenders can make an old goal or you hit exactly the guy and or you can get the second ball, so we need to improve on that, sure.
On Antoine Semenyo’s performance compared to his display at AFC Bournemouth
He did really well, you know, it's difficult to compare games from the Premier League with games in Africa and Ghana. It's very, very difficult and then all games have their own nature and surely you can say that he stands more out in the Premier League, but for me today he was excellent, he fought until he couldn't run anymore, maybe he thought he could stay a little bit longer, but he was fighting, he was the lone fighter up front and for me I'm very, very glad with his performance, he put them under pressure, he made a lot of runs, thicker runs so that others can shine, and so I'm very, very happy, even though he didn't have a lot of, like, maybe one dangerous action, but I was very satisfied with his performance and with his runs especially.
On Gideon Mensah being complacent
Well, I think sometimes he's a little bit too confident and we had, especially after the Chad game, we had some talks and for everyone who has played football on a higher level, he will understand. Gideon, sometimes makes deceptions, one inside and another one outside again. If he does it in La Liga, it's fine because in La Liga, if you lose the ball to your opponent, he will counter-press you, he'll go inside with you and then he's out with the left foot and he can play the ball, but in Africa, sometimes they're tired, sometimes you make a deception with the ball left and on the left side, they come right again for your left foot and he's still there. So, he needs to simplify his game sometimes. Didn't look too complicated, but it's difficult sometimes if you're coming from a different environment to switch your thinking and this one surely, he has to do better, but I have to say a big congrats on how he defended. The guys on the right side are very good, especially the one who came on, Nene, he's an excellent player, very, very fast and he did really well in defending against him.
On delay in making early substitutions
You know, we had our moments, even though we were tired, you could see that Kudus to Jordan, they had their moments still when they had the ball, that they could create something. So, we had to wait a little bit, but after 10 minutes to the end, I changed because surely, we have a lot of quality on the bench. I think Kamal Deen, Painstil and Inaki came in well and if we had used our numerical advantage in our counter situations better, we could have scored a second goal.
On Kwasi Sibo's performance
First of all, big congrats for him. I think he really did well. It's not easy to come from a different environment to fit into the squad, but yeah, he knows a lot of players already in the team and he connected well. He's very, very confident and I think he did extremely well, especially when you see that this was his first match. He's a warrior throughout, you could see. I think for the future, things will even get better, but like all players, his performance in his club will decide for the next call up. But the next window is so close and I'm pretty sure that he will be called again after this performance.
On tactics being questioned by Mali Coach
Yeah, so this is football, you know, sometimes you have to switch the tactics. I knew that they needed to win, so we played a little bit more defensively and we had good headers in our team because we have three tall defenders and at the end, this is his opinion. It's okay, I understand and I had my tactics, we had our tactics, and we decided well, I think, because what's most important is the three points and we got it and that's fine.
On whether the win makes his job safer
This is a question we have to ask the FA, so I don't know.
On Ghanaians being overly expectant
No, I think the expectations are normal. This is normal. We are Ghana. For me, if everybody is talking before the Chad game that we already won and we are already taking the three points, it's dangerous because if this gets to the heads of the fans, it's a problem for me. Because you see a little percentage here and there getting lost because they think it's easy. So, let's say their friends, their family, the media is talking, oh, Chad, we are always beating them, bla bla, it's a danger. And I'm talking now to you again to warn everybody who think we have already gone to the World Cup to take things easy. It's not like that. We have to give the same effort as today to beat Central African Republic. If we don't do this, it's a big problem. And if everybody thinks we're already gone, then sorry, we're not done yet. We have a lot of work to do. A lot of work. It's going to be very, very difficult, very, very hard. But I think if with the right thinking, with the right mentality, we will get there.
On Mali
Every opponent has his qualities, weakness and strengths. And I think Mali has a very, very strong team. And we decided to do that. But we have to look at each game, we have to analyse each game and then to see our tactics in the games. I can't say we're going to use the same approach every time. It depends on the opponent and on the situation.
On scoring only two goals this window compared to eight in March
I think it's difficult to talk about each game. You know, the last window, we scored eight goals. I think it was ok, but we can't expect it all the time. So I hope that the players who missed the chances, they really think the most about it and regret that they didn't use the chance. But it's all about learning, improving and adapting always to the circumstances. And I think in each situation, they could have taken one, two, three steps more or more time to look for the partner to have a better overview to give the right pass. But these decisions, surely also I will talk to them individually about this. And the players, they want to improve. Everybody wants to win. So, it's not by accident when it happens, but they have to improve, and they will improve.
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