No excuses: 'Absence of Hearts quartet not an excuse' - Joe Addo

Accra Hearts of Oak Corporate Affairs Manager, Joe Addo has rubbished claims that the club lost it's second leg of the CAF Confederation Cup match against Djoliba at the Accra Sports Stadium on Sunday because of the absence of four key players.

The former Caf inter-club football continental champions were without skipper Robin Gnagne, defender Owusu Bemapah, Isaac Oduro and Seidu Mutawakilu for the all-important second leg clash against the Malians.

The Mali based club dominated proceedings and ended victorious, but it was not enough to deny Hearts of Oak a ticket to the playoffs as it ended two-all on aggregate with Hearts sailing through on the away goal rule.

Joe Addo believes the absence of their skipper and three others had an effect in the teams performance, but says it is not an excuse.

"It was a difficult match against a good opponent," the former Black Stars defender told Happy FM.

"The boys needed self-motivation and I think we lacked it. When you go abroad and win, sometimes it is difficult motivating yourself for the second leg because you feel it is a done deal, but you have to psyche yourself and make up your mind that the result is zero-all.

"If you approach the game with that mind and things don't go as planned, then you device a strategy to settle for a good result. That is self-motivation; but I don't think yesterday the boys had that self-motivation, they think it was a done deal.

"As hard as they tried, things didn't go as planned. It was very, very unfortunate... I think the absence of the quartet was part of the reason for the performance.

"Because if you play with all your key players available and you win, and in the second leg, four of your major players are missing, sometimes it is difficult to play the same style and with the same rhythm, but it is not an excuse." He said