Ghanaian midfielder Umar Bashiru has opened up on the struggles he endured with club side Commercial Bank Ethiopia Sports Association in this season’s Ethiopian Premier League.
The defending league champions have struggled to win games this term, collecting two victories, three draws and four losses summing up 9 points in 16th spot from nine league matches. Bashiru joined CBE SA from fellow Ethiopia Premier League side Ethiopian Insurance (Medhin) for the 2023/24 league season which they won for the first time in the club’s history.
In an interview with Adamu Muftawu of Pan-Africa Football, Umar Bashiru admits to the club’s challenges.
“So far this season, my team’s performance hasn’t been that good. We are finding it difficult to win games,” Umar Bashiru told Pan-Africa Football. "We have played nine games and we got only two wins and we have only nine points from the nine games. Things are not going on our side but overall our performance is not bad."
“But I think the only problem is we are not getting the results but in most of our games we have been dominating, creating a whole lot of chances but we are finding it difficult to put the ball at the back of the net. So in general I will say the performance of our team is so far not good.” Umar Bashiru told Pan-Africa Football.
Bashiru has quickly ruled out the idea of retaining the Ethiopia Premier League title and he emphasizes the need to stay above the relegation zone at the end of the season. "On whether we can win the league or not, I don’t think this is our aim for now but before the start of the season, we had that in mind,” Umar Bashiru told Pan-Africa Football.
“But as things are going, we are just thinking about winning game after game. Just to try and get like three consecutive games to boost the confidence of the team to get into a very good position. Honestly we are not thinking about winning the [league] title. We are just thinking about getting back to winning ways."
“How to get the confidence of the team back, how to get out of the relegation zone. Currently that is our target. We want to win the remaining games and in the second round we can start thinking about winning the league,” Bashiru said.
Umar Bashiru has featured in four out of the nine league games played so far this season and he hopes for a better performance in the first round to help the club escape the drop.
The 28-year-old previously played for Ghanaian clubs West Africa Football Academy (WAFA) as well as record Ghana Premier League holders Asante Kotoko and Karela United before leaving to begin his journey in Ethiopia.
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