With 61 days to go for the 2008 African Cup of Nations, Ghana right-back, John Paintsil is praying the Black Stars maintain a winning run from now till the tournament is over.

The West Ham defender enjoyed a torrid time at the beginning of the season due to a lack of playing time but has recently had some minutes to show off his quality.

Paintsil turned up in style on the right of defence for Ghana in Sunday’s 2-0 win over Togo in the Zenith Bank 4-Nation International Tournament, surging forward with some quality runs and tracking back to cover up.

His performance on the evening went well noticed and now the player is confident Ghana can hold onto that form if they stay focused for the task ahead but he wants a victory over Benin which would make Ghana, victors of the four-nation mini tournament.

“We are looking forward to beating Benin because we need to keep a winning form till CAN 2008.

"We don’t want any disaster, we don’t want any drawn game.

“We are staying focused.

“The performance was okay because for almost 3 years, we’ve not played in Accra and what we’ve done was good as we look forward to the next game,” the West Ham defender told the media in post game interview on Sunday.

Paintsil, after Sunday’s showing expects to win another place in Claude Le Roy’s team for the final on Wednesday against Benin and build upon his performance before returning to England for club duties with West Ham.