Enyimba International manager Fatai Osho has praised Mountain of Fire Ministries, MFM FC, following their 1-0 victory in the NPFL21 on Thursday.
The Nigerian champions suffered a narrow 1-0 to MFM in a rescheduled week 15 encounter played at the Soccer Temple in Agege, Lagos.
Ebenezer Odeyemi scored the decisive winning goal to hand the Olukoya Boys a first-ever win over the People’s Elephant in the first half of the highly intensive context between the two.
Speaking after the match, Osho was very effusive about their hosts who he said fully deserved the win as they were tactically disciplined all through.
“We have to commend the MFM team,” he said. “They were compact, you could see the way they lose (sic) the ball, they go to low block all times and that reduced the space we had – they minimised the space available to us and that’s their tactical discipline also.”
“So, we can’t take that (the performance) from them, they really did well to get these points.”
On the performance of his team, a disappointed Osho added that the People’s Elephant lacked the needed ‘hunger’ to win on the day.
“I noticed the hunger was not enough for us,” Osho added.
“Clearly, we were in control but when you are in control, that has to translate to scoring goals and that didn’t happen.
I’m not too happy about the (lack of) hunger, I explained this to them at the break and why we had to push more because we were not looking like a team that was ready to score at all.
I expected with the injection of two more attackers we would get that (hunger and goal), but unfortunately, we couldn’t.”
The defeat in Agege was Enyimba’s first in eight (8) NPFL, with their last defeat in the league a similar result against Kwara United, also away, on January 20, 2021.
The Elephants remain sixth on the log with 27 points, three points, behind Kwara United albeit with three matches in hand.
Up next for Fatai Osho and his boys is a home game against Uyo side, Dakkada FC on Sunday.