Legon Cities coach Bashir Hayford admires ‘tough’ Hearts of Oak side

Legon Cities head coach Bashir Hayford has expressed admiration for Hearts of Oak after the Phobians defeated them 2-1 in the Ghana Premier League on Thursday evening.

The former African champions triumphed over the Royals at the Accra Sports Stadium thanks to goals with attacker Daniel Afriyie Barnieh winning the MVP award in the game.

Hearts opened the scoring in the 28th minute through Kwadwo Obeng Junior who registered his 10th goal of the league season after some breathtaking display from Afriyie Barnieh inside the Cities box.

Ghana youth attacker Barnieh produced a moment of magic and inspiration for the Phobians as his jaw-dropping skill saw two Cities defenders beaten inside the box with his supreme nimble foot and energy as he weaved past the defence men before laying the pass to Kwadwo Obeng Junior who has positioned himself in space to score the opening goal and register his 9th league goal of the campaign for the Phobians.

Hearts continued to exert their energy and forced their presence on the game and 9 minutes after Obeng’s equaliser, the Phobians doubled their lead through midfielder Frederick Ansah Botchway. The former Liberty Professionals box-to-box midfielder who came in for Emmanuel Nettey in the starting XI swept home a screaming low grounder after Salifu Ibrahim’s corner kick was ganged out of the box by the Cities defence men.

Nigerien attacker Victorien Adebayor scored from a swashbuckling free kick from 20 yards to record the consolation for the hosts.

After the 90 minutes Cities coach had some nice words for the Hearts of Oak fraternity.

“Hearts of Oak have done very well. We took the game to them and they were able to stand very firm. Unfortunately we had already conceded two goals and we had to make sure we redeem one. In the second half we wanted to sell our game. They did well and they stood for the game and the whole of the 45 minutes of the second half was for us but they well and I think we have sold a very beautiful game for Ghanaians to see that Legon Cities is not a team to joke with,” he told Eli Kondoh in the post match interview.

Hearts have moved back to the top of the league table with the latest results and are in the best of forms in the Ghana Premier League having won 7 of their last 8 league games.