Gomaa: Patience needed with Ebimobowei like Antwi, Flavio

In a televised interview in Egypt, Al Ahly director of football Wael Gomaa spoke about his team’s transfer targets as well as their newest addition, Peter Ebimobowei.

The 21-year-old Nigerian, who signed for the Red Devils on a three-year contract earlier this week, has scored 18 goals last season playing for Bayelsa United in the Nigerian Premier League.

Gomaa made it clear that patience will be key with the striker, as well as any other new signee: “I would like to ask from the fans that they don’t judge Peter [Ebimobowei] or any other new player we will bring to the club without giving them their time and their adaptation period.”

The ex-defender continued by mentioning foreign strikers who’ve excelled in Egypt, including the league’s current top scorer, John Antwi (Ghana), and famous Ahly striker Flavio Amado (Angola) – with the latter needing an adaptation period with the Cairo giants before becoming the mercurial striker that he was for the team: “He [Flavio] came in and everybody knew his level, but it took him one year to fully adapt and start performing to this level.”

“Antwi came to trial at Al Ahly SC, and now he’s the league’s top scorer with Ismaily.

“We are bringing a forward that scored 18 goals in the Nigerian Premier League, who has very good attributes and even made it to the Nigerian national team lately.
“We believe he is one of the talents that have a great future,” he added.

When asked if the fact that Ebimobowei was not playing with one of the big clubs in Nigeria, and does not have experience playing in African competitions, such as the CAF Champions League, was a point that concerned him, Gomaa replied: “The question is: will the player be able to adapt with your team and does he have the talent to do so? We believe he does as he managed to score 18 goals on a team that has a problem reaching the opponent’s goal on a regular basis.”

“From what we saw from him, he is the type of player that creates the scoring chance for himself.”

It is worth mentioning that Ebimobowei is the author of seven goals with Bayelsa United this season after 20 gameweeks in the Nigerian Premier League and will be included in Al Ahly’s 2015 CAF Champions League list.

Courtesy: kingfut.com