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Milovan Rajevac praises Jojo Wollacott
Wollacott made his international debut for Ghana last Saturday and pulled off some fantastic saves, including stopping a point-blank shot from Zimbabwe skipper, Knowledge Musona, after Ghana's centre-back Alexander Dziku had cheaply gifted the ball away.
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According to the Serbian coach. even though he did not like to single out players for praises based on their contribution to the team, he thought the Swindon Town shot-stopper did so much that deserved acknowledgement.
Explaining why he opted to play the untested 25-year-old ahead of the more experienced Lawrence Ati-Zigi who kept a clean sheet in Ghana's 1-0 win over Ethiopia in the first group qualifier last month, the coach said Wollacott deserved to be chosen ahead of the others because he proved to be the best at training and worked hard for the position.
"Since he arrived he's proved himself at the training sessions, he did a great job, he deserve his chance. Today he was at the top of the game definitely, I am satisfied with his performance and I don’t want to praise goalkeepers too much but he really did a good job today," Rajevac said.
The coach attributed his side's victory to a team effort but said his players must quickly focus on the task ahead tomorrow in Harare to make sure they replicated last Saturday's performance in the reverse fixture at the Harare International Stadium.
''I want to congratulate all the players for their effort, we did this together and they all participated so we are looking ahead and thinking about the next much so its ok we have the next match in three days so we have to focus on our next challenge," Rajevac said.
The coach explained that he deployed centre-back Daniel Amartey at the right-back role when he had Dream FC youngster Philemon Baffour as the only natural right-back in the team as injury kept england-based Andy Yiadom out of the match.
''I was expecting Andy Yiadom to come but he had some left foot injury so at the last moment we had to cancel his departure. We had less options than we were supposed to have, so this is my decision," he explained.
He expressed confidence in the central defensive partnership between Alexander Dziku and Jonathan Mensah despite conceding a goal each in their last two games played together, insisting that the pair had what was required to execute their assigned roles effectively.
"I just decided for this team and I believe in those players and yes we conceded one goal but I still have faith these guys are capable of doing their tasks in appropriate way and they can play well and they can do what is important for the team," he said.