3 First Half Strikes From Awazie, Ihemekwele & Nweke Sends Enyimba 2nd On NPFL Log

__..As Coach Yema Hails Players, Sets Eye On 3SC Game__

Enyimba FC had to wait till after 24 hours to ensure their third league win of the season and two consecutive clean sheets of the 2024/24 NPFL season.

3 quick first half goals from Ekene Awazie at the 16th minute, Ifeanyi Ihemekwele second of the season and Nweke Kalu's first of the season at the 34th minute was all the 9 time champions needed to guarantee a comfortable win and the 3 points.

Although the game suffered an unfortunate delay owing to an unforseen power failure with about 20 minutes to go with Enyimba already in a commanding lead.

It was however finished the following day (Monday) by 8am with both sides just seeing out the remaining minutes to hand the People's Elephant their 3rd league victory.

Head Coach of Katsina United after the game blamed his team's loss to fatigue which he said was because of the team bus that broke down on the road promising the team would work on that.

Reacting to the win, Coach Yema Olarenwaju of Enyimba hailed his players for bringing it to the party and rapping the game in the first half.

When quizzed about the team's potent in front of goal, he said;

"I don't think we struggle in front of goal, when you look at it this season, we are still one of the highest scoring side, strikers are hard to come by.

"I have said several times in the past, for two seasons we have produced the league's top striker and none of them is still with us.

"Every season we are starting all over again. In the league this happens and I know this is Enyimba, sometimes we get the criticisms but I think the team deserves some commendation too.

"We have played about 8 games since inception and we have lost just one game both in the continent.

On the clean sheet, Coach Yema said;

"We have lots of players and sometimes you need to do a bit of rotation, if you look at Moses and Innocent, the played both in the continent and they did a good job without conceding any goal.

"But they played four straight games and with a bit of tiredness, fatigue and malaria we decided to bring in the captain, Somairi and Paschal and they gave us something fresh which is good.

"You can also see Nweke come in and scored a wonderful goal, so we want to do a bit of that to keep all fresh.

On the next game against 3SC in Ibadan, Coach Yemi admitted it would be a tough one especially as they have dropped points but insisted they would only give them some respect like they do to others and stick to their game plan.

He however revealed his desire to avoid some of the Arab clubs in the CAF Confederation Cup grouping (which unfortunately couldn't come to pass as Enyimba drew Zamalek & El Masry of Egypt in group D), expressing his respect for them but noted that Enyimba doesn't fear any opponent as they are willing to take on any challenge.