Hearts of Oak problem is not coaching

Former Board Member of Accra Hearts of Oak SC, Frank Nelson Nwokolo, says coach Aboubakar Ouattara should not be faulted for the club’s current poor performance in the Ghana Premier League.

Hearts of Oak have won two matches, drawn three and lost three matches after match day nine of the ongoing season, leaving the club on 9 points from a possible 24.

A section of the club’s support base has accused their Burkinabe coach of the clubs’ poor results and are urging the management to sack the outspoken gaffer.

But speaking to Luv Sports in an interview, Frank Nelson stressed the need for the club to go for quality players, saying the problem of Hearts of Oak is purely the lack of quality players.

“First of all, I won’t blame the coach, I won’t blame the playing body but we need to look at the problem holistically and know exactly where the problem is coming from. We need to be sincere to ourselves and ask if we are doing the right recruitment, are the players we got into the club players that can play for Accra Hearts of Oak?

“Well, I don’t think these are the best players in Ghana for Accra Hearts of Oak. Accra Hearts of Oak I know in those days is the club that goes for the best players, like going for Yaw Sakyi from Kotoko, going for Eric Gawu from King Faisal, Anthony Annan from Hasacas etc,” he emphasized.

Frank Nelson is urging the club to go in for tried and tested players in the local league and stop buying players from the lower division since that is not the recruitment style of Accra Hearts of Oak.

“Go for players who are tried and tested not playing for Division One or Two clubs but players who have tasted the premiership and achieved laurels with their clubs. Everybody knows Gawu’s influence on the King Faisal team then, everybody knows what Yaw Sakyi was doing with Kotoko. Accra Hearts of Oak we are not used to mediocrity, we don’t accept anything that is below average so I sincerely think that we need to take a look at how we do our recruitment again,” he said.

Frank Nelson, who lost his place on the Hearts of Oak Board during the last AGM, has meanwhile called for a strong scouting team that can identify the best talents on the scene for the club.

“I think we should also look at our scouting, in terms of recruitment I don’t think we should wait till at the end of the season then we do a wholesome recruitment as we did this season. For instance, this season I know we recruited about fifteen players into the club and that’s not the best for a club that wants to progress. And the season before I’m sure that the same number of players were recruited.

So every season you get fifteen or ten players coming in, another ten exiting, then there’ll be no consistency in the team, so I think we should be very strategic. That’s why I advise that we should have a strong scouting team that will be able to help us scout the best players ahead of the season,” he stated.

Hearts of Oak will next travel to face Medeama SC at the Tarkwa T&A stadium in the Ghana Premier League.