Deputy Black Stars captain Andre Ayew says his side struggled in the second half of the game against Ethiopia following the awful state of the pitch.
The four times African champions defeated the Walias of Ethiopia 2-0 on Sunday at the Hawassa International Stadium to boast their qualification chances for next year’s finals.
Nonetheless, a fantastic first half display saw Jordan Ayew struck twice in 30 minutes for Kwesi Appiah’s charges to pile pressure on the Eastern Africans.
Ayew, who captained the team in place of Asamoah Gyan said the nature of the pitch did not help their style of play.
“The pitch was difficult to play on, we knew that at the start of the game that due to our coach’s tactics, we needed to score a goal in the first 30 minutes and we did our best to do that and we got the second after a counter attack,” said the Fenerbache forward after the game.
“I think it affected our play, Ghana is a team who like to posses and play football but the pitch was bad so we had to show maturity and experience.”
“When you get to this level, what is important is, we needed the three points to qualify for AFCON and that is what we did.”
Ghana leapfrogs Ethiopia to second place with six points after three games, just a point behind Kenya who they will play in Kumasi in the final qualifier.