NPFL24: My players didn’t play to instruction – Christian Obi

By Sharon Ekhiwere

After their 1-0 defeat to Bendel Insurance FC on Saturday at the Samuel Ogbemudia stadium in Benin City in a matchday 32 fixture of the NPFL, Coach Christian Obi of Heartland FC of Owerri has called out his players for their lackadaisical and lackluster approach to the match,platinumnewsng.com is reporting.

Coach Christian Obi believes his players didn’t play to instruction as he was rather bewildered that the boys who played against Bendel Insurance didn’t look like the boys he trained on the pitch.

In a post-match interview with newsmen, Coach Obi said, “If my boys had played according to instruction, you would have seen another record broken here today. My boys were lackadaisical in their approach to the game, they weren’t committed, I think something must be wrong somewhere because these are not the boys I trained. What they played this evening is out of the game, I don’t know what happened.”

Despite their poor form so far this season, and maintaining the bottom four position for most of the season, Coach Obi singled out the game against Bendel Insurance as a bad one saying that he knows the game plan of Bendel Insurance and that he worked on it with his boys in training and they studied how to curb the game plan but he was surprised to see his boys playing an entirely different game on the pitch, he added they what they played is not in the books.

When asked what his effort was to solve this challenge during the game, Coach Obi said: “I brought in new players into the game to correct the situation yet they did not do what I wanted them to do and that’s why I’m emphasizing that I don’t know what happened to the players.”

Sarki Ismael’s 83rd-minute goal sealed victory for Bendel Insurance FC as attention now shifts to the Federation’s Cup.