• Razak Abalora’s form has slumped in recent games
• Abukari Damba has advised the goalkeepers’ trainer of the Black Stars to help Abalora rediscover his form
• He has charged Abalora to take responsibility for his mistakes
Najawu Issah, the goalkeepers’ coach of the Black Stars should be losing sleep over Razak Abalora’s recent form, former Black Stars goalkeeper Abukari Damba has opined.
Razak Abalora is currently Ghana’s second rated goalkeeper, deputizing for Richard Ofori.
In the team’s last three matches, Ofori has been absent with Razak keeping post twice and Lawrence Ati-Zigi being in charge in the match against Ivory Coast last week.
Abalora’s form has been a topic of concern for Black Stars and Kotoko fans over the goalie’s petty blunders in recent games.
The latest being a gaffe against Morocco where he fumbled in parrying a cross which led to the lone goal of the fixture.
Taking his turn on Sports Check on GhanaWeb, Damba said the goalkeepers’ trainer of the senior national team should be concerned with the form of his deputy goalie.
He explained that like every coach, the trainer was recruited to fix such issues and must engage Abalora on how he can assist him recover from the slump.
“It will be a headache for me. That is why I’m the trainer. I have a job to fix the challenge. It will be a headache for which reason we coaches have the coach-player relationship. You can have an individual chat with your goalkeeper to understand what the challenge is about.
“The challenge could be unrelated to the issues on the pitch. He could be bringing challenges off the pitch to the pitch. You need to find ways of dealing with these issues. These intermittent losses of concentration should not happen and there is pre-training to be able to deal with such challenges. We offer psychological assistance to players. Psychology is a key part of the game so we need to have a psychologist.
“That is why the keeper’s position is so important because momentary loss of concentration and the team is down. So, the goalie should maintain concentration on the pitch for longer periods. We achieve these with constant training both on and off the pitch,” he said.