Inter Allies Head Coach Danijel Mujkanovic is confident his side will come back stronger after their narrow 1-0 defeat to Asante Kotoko on Wednesday in the Ghana Premier League.
Below is Dani’s Q&A interview after the game:
QUESTION – What is your impression of the game?
DANI – What can I say? I feel I really feel that we deserved more today. I’m really proud regarding our performance today way. We had a plan that we wanted to be compact today. Defensively, stay strong and we could get some offensive transitions and hurt them. I actually feel that that we were defending really good didn’t give many changes away for me like they are getting first, some big opportunities at the end where we are trying to chase them.
But for me, like until the first mistake we make where we don’t defend the first ball well enough and they get the penalty afterwards, it was like for me it was a perfect game almost when you look at our defensive style. So that’s all the boys today. I really feel that they deserved more, but unfortunately we didn’t get it, you know.
And now we have lost nine games, six of them were 1-0, you should almost think that we are collecting them, but actually not that way. But we did our best today. I’m proud. I feel that they played their hearts out there and they actually deserved more than that.
It has happened. You know, I think we’ll just continue. We can’t hide in there, we’ll bounce back strongly.
QUESTION – What is actually the problem?
DANI – I think if I ask you the same question, you could probably give me the answer because you had it. We’ve scored one goal in the last five games, that’s the issue right now. That’s what we’re strongly against. I don’t know all the results from this round, but if you look before this round today there were only five teams in the whole league that have conceded fewer goals than we have. So as I told you, we have lost nine games, six of them were 1-0.
The biggest defeat we have had was 2-0 on two penalties. So for me what we have, we have a strong defense. We actually have a pretty good basic defense and not giving a lot of chances away.
Our problem right now and things we are struggling with is our offensive play. When we try to play a little bit in the opponent’s half and to keep the ball and see if we can go through. We’re just missing quality right now. Only thing we can do is go back on the pitch as we do every day as Abanga is telling, work hard and then it will come. At some point we will turn this around.
QUESTION – Would you say Kotoko is a difficult side to beat?
DANI – I think Kotoko is a difficult team to face, you could also see like they only conceded six goals before the game today. So that’s still the fact and I feel that they have plenty good players. They want to dominate, attack a lot so like we knew it was going to be a difficult game and again I feel that way, got some opportunities regarding offensive transitions.
We just missed the quality to maybe create something out of them and then of course that it’s hard to win. But at the end I still feel that we could have taken one point and in our situation it, it would have been good against one of the biggest clubs and so like bad luck or what you call it. But I feel that we deserved more.
QUESTION – Would you say Inter Allies lack luck?
DANI – Well, I always say like, you know if you have luck, which you somehow chased the luck, you know, the problem was, I see when I look back and our games since I came down here also actually from the beginning of the season. The problem is, when we have the good periods in our games, when we are like dominating, when we are creating opportunities, we don’t score.
And that’s the fact and goals change games. You know, goals give you more energy, more confidence, more courage and when you don’t get that from your good periods and then you feel like one little mistake today for me, one mistake after 65 minutes and suddenly we have a situation where they get penalty out of it, is that like a bad luck?
I don’t know, But like, let’s imagine that we had some of those transitions that were going better than they did, and we created some chances, then it will give us a boost, you know, and we don’t get that right now because we don’t get the output of our good periods in the games. And that’s how it is, you know, and you could call it luck but at the end, it’s just about carrying the output and having the qualities to get it.
