CK Akonnor deserved more time to turn things around – John Paintsil

Paintsil believes the 47-year-old wasn’t given enough time to turn thing things around, describing the decision as disappointing.

Akonnor and his two assistants, David Duncan and Patrick Greveraars, were all fired after Ghana’s poor start to the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

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“It’s not a nice feeling, when it happens to a coach, it is like it has happened to all of us,” Paintsil said, as quoted by Citisportsonline.

“However, this is the nature of a coaches’ job, sometimes you get a good start, other times you get a bad start.” He said in an interview on Eyewitness News.

“I would say that it is rather unfortunate, this is not the right time at all, he should have been given time to work on the team.

“When you look at his statistics and what he has done, you can tell that he came at the wrong time, and he didn’t get the chance to camp the players enough before most of the games. For me, it is very disappointing.”

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Akonnor was appointed as Ghana coach in January 2019 as a replacement to Kwesi Appiah, who he had served as an assistant to.

The former Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko manager, however, failed to impress during his time in charge of the Black Stars.

In 10 matches, he had a win rate of just 40%, having won four, lost four and draw two. The final nail on his coffin was Ghana’s dull 1-0 defeat to South Africa in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.