The Ivorian sporting media are critical of the Elephants‘ manager François Zahoui after their poor performance in goalless the friendly against Guinea last night. ‘Supersport’ says that Zahoui needs to revaluate his methods as far as his coaching system is concerned. The paper says there is no excuse for Zahoui and his team after failing to convince once again, where fans and football pundits were expecting a rebirth after their unsatisfactory second place in the Nations Cup. The paper adds that Zahoui did not put the right men at the right place using left-sided Arthur Boka on the right-wing. Apparently unfazed by the way the team played, Zahoui says they did well but lacked chances in the penalty area. “Our objective coming here was to win. We played with lot of determination but unfortunately we could not score a goal. We had opportunities to score several times and that’s a positive thing to acknowledge. I am happy with their performance and hope next time we’ll score goals” he said.
The paper says that Ivory Coast did not vanquish the Zambians at the continental tournament because they lacked a daring coach, a man who can adapt his strategies depending on the opponents. It concludes that the Ivorian boss has reached his limits.
‘Fraternite Matin’ says Ivory Coast were hugely crippled in the absence of Chelsea prolific scorer Didier Drogba. It underlines the ‘Drogba dependence’ factor that the Elephants come up against, when the team’s corner stone is unavailable. The article expresses concerns following Seydou Doumbia’s lack of ability in front of the goal. The current Russian league’s best player has proved repetitively inefficient when he’s given the chance to take over from the Elephants’ captain.
