Randy Abbey lists three things that went bad for Ghana at 2023 AFCON

Ghana Football Association executive council member, Randy Abbey, has highlighted what he perceives to be the three factors that led to the Black Stars' disgraceful display at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.

Ghana put up one of their worst performances in AFCON, failing to progress from fairly a favourable group that had Cape Verde, Egypt, and Mozambique.

Randy Abbey opined on Good Morning that, how players were deployed, substitutions, and game management were the three key factors that led to Ghana's dreadful performance.

He admitted that the team had a disastrous turn of events and that the GFA would work in order not to repeat the shambolic performance.

"We had a disastrous campaign. For me, All I have spoken to I mean our stakeholders recognise that some things did not go right. What happened should never happen again. And we must take the steps necessary to ensure that we don't have that, I mean this country and its people do not deserve that."

Randy Abbey, who did not travel with the team, went on to explain what went wrong for the Black Stars in Ivory Coast.

"Watching the games, I could tell that we had a problem with the deployment of players, the substitution, the timing of the substitution, and the kind of substitution that was made. And then game management."

He cited the Mozambique game, in which Ghana threw away a two-goal lead as a glaring case of mismanagement of a game.

"If you look at the Mozambique game, that is a typical case of mismanagement of a game. You need to manage the game better and everybody needs to take responsibility."

"I think we had an issue with transitions. I am not a coach, but Salis a DM, and Baba Iddrisu are also the same. Ashimeru is what you would want to call a number 8, somebody who does the transition. So if you look at the call-ups and you ask yourself how many number 8s did you put in the team? We had Ashimeru and Richmond Lamptey but Lamptey, for all three games, was not even on the bench for you to play. So in the first game, we had Baba Iddrisu and Salis playing, so it made the transition difficult. When Ashimeru is in the game you can tell that we are able to progress the game better. In the third game, I think did not really recover from the injury he had in the second game. So when he went out, we brought out Baba Iddrisu, and then two number 6s were playing."

The Black Stars were eliminated in the group stage without a win, drawing two, and losing one of their three games played in Group B.

A 2-1 defeat to Cape Verde in the opening game was followed by 2-2 draws with Egypt and Mozambique in the second and final group matches respectively.

With just two points and a goal deficit, the Black Stars recorded successive group-stage exits from the AFCON, having suffered the same fate in the 2021 edition.

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