The Black Stars of Ghana are eying qualification for the 2023 AFCON qualifiers in Ivory Coast with an away clash against Madagascar coming up on June 18.
Ghana leads group E on 8 points from four matches and a win against the Islanders in Antananarivo will boost head coach, Chris Hughton’s chances of leading the West African nation to his first major tournament.
Following in second on the table is Central Africa Republic on 7 points with Angola in third on 5 points – leaving the group quite open with two games to wrap up the qualifiers.
With Madagascar already eliminated on a paltry one point from four games, Ghana will look to take advantage of their poor defence which has conceded 9 goals to claim all three points to go 11 points.
However, the Black Stars go into the game with the invited strikers, Andre Ayew, Inaki Williams, Jordan Ayew, Kwasi Okyere-Wriedt averaging just 17 goals among them in the just ended European season.
Returnee, Kwasi Okyere-Wriedt has scored just three times in 26 appearances for German Bundesliga II club, Holstein Kiel with captain of the team, Andre Ayew firing blanks at Nottingham Forest in 13 appearances.
Athletic Bilbao forward, Inaki Williams has an impressing 35 appearances, scoring 10 goals with Jordan managing just 4 goals in a whopping 38 games for Crystal Palace.
The lack of goals among Ghana’s forwards looks worrying as they need to up their scoring rate in the last two games to stand a huge chance of qualifying for the next AFCON in January.
Many have questioned why local boy, Abednego Tetteh of Bibiani Gold Stars who has scored 16 goals in 27 games as been overlooked by the technical team for Okyere-Wriedt.
The Black Stars have scored six times from four qualifying games and conceded twice in the process.
