RTU win at home despite abysmal performance

Tamale, June 28, GNA - Real Tamale United (RTU) on Sunday played one of their poorest games at their home in recent times but managed to chalk a two-zero victory over visiting Bechem Chelsea in their Glo Premier League match at the Tamale stadium on Sunday.

Right from the referee's whistle, the RTU failed to perform to the satisfaction of their fans but visiting Chelsea could not utilize their numerous chances to avenge the 3-1 home defeat they suffered in the hands of RTU during the first round of the League at Sunyani.

The home team played as if they were on a training session with a Second Division side while the visitors were always on the offensive but luck eluded them withe all their attempts at goal missing target.

Almost the entire first half belonged to the visitors who displayed some quality soccer and occasionally received applause from the partisan RTU supporters but they failed to translate any of their chances into goals until proceedings were brought to an end for recess. The second half started with the introduction of Abdul Salam Alhassan, the diminutive antics player of RTU who came in to change the tempo of the game and it came as no surprise when they got the two goals in the half due to his hard work.

The diminutive Salam Alhassan, referred to as "Tamale Kaka" was just a sight to watch any time he had the ball as he was very difficult to beat and often run after the ball as if he was a hare. It was Kabiru Imoro who opened the scoring in the 55th minute after the diminutive Salam Alhassan had singly handedly run with the ball from the centre circle and passed to the right wing into the goal area, which Imoro made no mistake to head home to register the first goal for RTU. The goal ignited the stadium with the fans on their feet as they cheered the players on who from then found their rhythm and gave accurate passes and made several attempts to increase the tally but goalkeeper Abubakari Iddrisu of Chelsea denied the home team of the expected goals.

As the game progressed RTU lost their rhythm and the visitors again took control and dictated the pace for some time but they seemed not to have the experience to win the match.

Abdul Salam increased the tally for RTU to two in the 84th minute when Chelsea in their desperation to equalize lost the ball in the RTU goal area and they paid dearly for it as they failed to chase Salam in the counter-attack for the striker to run with the ball and took time to deceive the goalkeeper into a wrong direction before scoring the second goal.

The visitors made several attempts to at least redeem a goal but time was not on their side and after the four minutes' of added on time had elapsed, referee Patrick k. Kyeremanteng from Kumasi whistled to bring proceedings to an end to earn RTU an enviable 2-0 victory