Coach Refuses to Blame Nigerian Attacker in Club Stalemate

French coach Frank Dumas has refused to be drawn into blaming his new signing and Nigerian-born striker Uche Nwofor in JSK Kabylie’s dropping of points in the Algerian Premier League.

Uche, a former Super Eagles’ striker, had a chance to put the game to bed but chose to square pass to teammate Benyouchef with Olympique Medea’s goalmouth begging.

Table-topping JSK Kabylie ended up picking just a point which they had to launch a come-from-behind to earn after Medea had opened the score earlier.

Dumas moaned over the wasted opportunity but dismissed it as a striker’s first reaction under pressure.

“Uche missed a goal, he had to hand the ball over to Benyoucef who played one. But I cannot blame him. He’s an attacker who played the action,” he said in the aftermath of the game that sees The Greens lead reduced to three points following NA Hussein Dey’s 2-1 win over eighth-placed Paradou on the same day, on Friday.

Frank is not worried much over the recent hitch as long their unbeaten run is not broken but said getting the points would have altered matters.

“I want to congratulate Belaïli for his superb goal. On the other hand, I want to say that our goal has always been not to lose. While we would have liked to get the three points but we still did everything we could to win,” he said.

JSK walked down to the tunnel to rapturous cheers from their teeming number of fans.

27-year-old Uche joined the North African giants in July on a fee reported to be in excess of £203,000 from Nigeria’s Rivers United.