Chris Hughton feels Gideon Mensah’s injury absence is due to his role in Auxerre’s relegation struggle in the recently concluded French Ligue 1.
The Black Stars head coach believes Auxerre handled the knee injury problem well enough to keep Mensah well enough to play in important games to assist the club avoid relegation.
Auxerre, on the other hand, finished the 2022-2023 season in 17th place after losing 0-1 to fellow relegation-threatened Brest.
Auxerre’s position would have maintained them in the league in past seasons, but a new mandate to have 18 teams participate in the league instead of 20 heading forward means four teams instead of three were relegated to Ligue 2.
Hughton stated during a press conference following a training session at the Accra Sports Stadium that Mensah’s injury-related absence from the Black Stars squad to play Madagascar in a 2023 AFCON qualifier on Sunday, June 18 is due to the injury.
“His club has been managing an injury that he has but this is somebody who has been playing in all of the games and maybe some of that is because his team were obviously in a very difficult position. Gideon wanted to be here that’s a good sign,” the 54-year-old said.
So it was our responsibility to assess him, assessed where he is at that moment with the medical information and come to a conclusion that probably at this stage we didn’t want to risk him.”
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