Al Ahli coach: Mousa Sow doesn’t need Asamoah Gyan comparison

Published on: 02 September 2015
Al Ahli coach: Mousa Sow doesn’t need Asamoah Gyan comparison
Asamoah Gyan

Al Ahli coach Cosmin Olaroiu steered clear of building new signing Mousa Sow up for a fall when he was asked to compare the player with Arabian Gulf League legend Asamoah Gyan.

Ghanaian striker Gyan, 29, finished top scorer in the Arabian Gulf League for three consecutive seasons from 2011-12 to 2013-14 with a tally of 95 goals in 83 appearances for Al Ain before joining Chinese Super League side Shanghai SIPG this summer.

Senegalese striker Sow, 29, promises to be as prolific for Al Ahli after joining from Turkey’s Fenerbahce for €17 million (Dh70 million) this week – in a move that has yet to be confirmed by the Al Ghusais outfit.

Asked if Sow could be as big as Gyan, Olaroiu, who was Gyan’s coach at Al Ain from 2011 to 2013 before defecting to Al Ahli, replied: “Mousa Sow is one player and Asamoah Gyan is another. Gyan has confirmed his quality, with Sow we will see.”

It was Olaroiu’s first acknowledgement of the supposed move, which Fenerbahce said would be finalised by Monday. But the Romanian said there was no such pressure to confirm the transfer. “Deadline for who?” he snapped. “Here we can transfer until September 21, so there is no deadline for us.”

Sow tweeted his farewells to Fenerbahce fans on Monday: “One last massive thanks to Fenerbahce,” he said. “Three and a half years fantastic, and the best goodbye ceremony I could wish for.”

Olaroiu was talking on the sidelines of Al Ahli’s 2-0 Arabian Gulf Cup opener at home to Emirates Club on Monday where goals either half from Rodrigo Lima and Humaid Abbas secured the victory.

Lima continued his freescoring form with his fourth goal in three appearances since joining from Benfica this summer. He scored two in Al Ahli’s 8-1 Arabian Gulf League opener with Fujairah and added another in their 1-0 Asian Champions League quarter-final first leg away to Naft Tehran last week.

“I’m very happy for the players who played today as they showed good spirit and attitude and this is very important for us,” said Olaroiu, who was without ten players for the fixture.

“It’s very difficult for us because we are missing a lot of players through national team duty, but we will fight until the end to get qualification. Al Ahli have given the most amount of players to the national team, but even though we miss players, we will try our best,” he added of the competition.

Emirates coach Paulo Comelli said: “Al Ahli were more efficient to make goals, they deserved this victory. We always take each competition seriously. We will wait for a victory in the second game and look to progress from there.”

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