Mohammed Polo blames Slavko Matic for Hearts’ recent poor performance

Hearts of Oak legend Mohammed Polo has indicated that the coach of the side, Slavko Matic, should be partly blamed for the club’s recent shambolic performance.

The Phobians are winless in their last three Ghana Premier League games failing to score a single goal in theprocesd. Matic’s charges will not have the opportunity to defend the MTN FA Cup they won last season after they were bundled out of the 2023 edition by Dreams FC on Sunday in Accra. 

According to Polo, Matic’s decision to do away with some senior players when he took over from Samuel Boadu was wrong. The Serbian tactician informed the management of the club that he was not interested in the services of former captain Fatawu Mohammed, Mohammed Alhassan, and Cameroonian Junior Kaaba.

Reports indicate that he also told Richard Attah, who was the club’s number one goalie, to work on his body size before he gets the chance to play.

“How can a new coach just decide to sack players he thinks are aging without thorough knowledge about them?” “If you cannot adopt a technical direction that will suit the players available to you as a coach, you will always have problems, and that is the exact problem Hearts is confronted with,” he told Akoma FM in Kumasi.

“The players at Hearts are fantastic, but it’s the coach who needs to develop a strategy that will see Hearts win. Sacking the players is not the solution.”

“It will be difficult for Hearts to win the league, though I believe the league is a marathon. Now that they are out of the FA Cup, they should fight for the league. Ironically, those who were not patient with Samuel Boadu when Hearts was struggling, now that the club is confronted with a similar situation, what will they say now? 

“The coach (Matic) must be partly blamed for the poor run of the club; he needs to fix it as soon as possible.”

Hearts are without four key players, who are with the Black Galaxies at the ongoing CHAN tournament in Algeria. They include Gladson Awako, Konadu Yiadom, Dennis Korsah, and Suraj Seidu. 

They have also sold Daniel Afriyie Barnieh to FC Zurich, and he will therefore not return to the club after the CHAN competition.