Gajaga musings: “now let’s get back to serious soul searching”

With the dust gradually settling down now following the scorpions much-heralded qualification to the Africa Cup of Nations, QTV journalist Momodou Gajaga has reached out to share his thoughts and concerns on To Saintfiet’s blended squad of young and old.

Momodou Gajaga is a journalist with local television station QTV

After our qualification to AFCON is secured, now let us get back to serious soul searching of our beloved scorpions. For me, this team needs strengthening in all departments. In attack, midfield and in defence. Even though we have qualified, we can look back and assess the team.

In general terms, our players easily lose possession, lack the fluency in switching play from the back to midfield and subsequently to attack. I have seen quite often our goalkeeper or defenders will take long clearances, in which the ball will land to our opponents, lose possession just to end up defending again. On many occasions, we have been easily outplayed by opponents albeit sometimes results going our way. Some of these factors could potentially be related to our coach Tom Saintfiet’s tactics.

Do we have players in the squad that are not fit enough to play 90mins in a competitive game? I think so, maybe I am wrong too; I have observed that we rarely play high intensity games, neither to win back the ball quickly nor play the basic passing game with fluency to last beyond a minute.

Now that we will be playing at the continent's showpiece event as competitors and not just mere participants, let us boost our squad with players playing regularly for their clubs. I am not a technician, put as a journalist and fan of the Scorpions I believe I can share my opinion.