Grant gives positive assessment of Senegal and Mali friendlies

Black Stars coach Avram Grant has given a positive assessment of the team's two games in the past five days.

The Israeli is generally happy with what he has seen against Senegal on Saturday and Mali on Tuesday.

"I think we reached our targets in the last seven days.

"Of course, the results are important but in friendlies, results are less important than in tournaments. We had the team for a short time which was about a week in a few months so we used the situation to try a new system.

For Grant, his objectives set out for the matches were reached - although he did not say what the objectives were.

"The team understood it very well against Mali and up until when I changed it, we led by a goal and created chances. Even the goal scored by Mali was down to a moment of inexperience from one of our players."

'Fringe' players
There had been a lot of talk in the buildup to the two games in France urging Grant to use the fringe players he invited.

On Joy Sports, former Ghana boss Emmanuel Kwesi Afranie had vritually demanded that the Israeli field Seidu Salifu and others.

"Other players got to play in the matches. We played the second match without Jonathan Mensah, and at a point in the second half of the Mali match, we did not have John Boye," Avram noted.

"Razak Braimah was also not in the match and Baba Rahman was also not available. We can face such things in tournaments so we needed to try things out for ourselves. I am very happy with what I saw."

Ghana begin competitive action from June when the qualifiers for Afcon 2017 begin.  

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Story by Ghana/Joy Sports/Gary Al-Smith