By Arfang M.S. Camara
Bye Malleh Wadda, head coach of Real de Banjul has expressed happiness to be back at the top of the league standings after defeating Elite United 3-0 in their week-seven fixture of The Gambia Football Federation (GFF) First Division League played at the Live Your Dream Sports Academy in Basori on Thursday.
Modou Manneh opened the scoring for the City Boys in the 42 minute of the first half. Adama Saidy extended Real de Banjul’s lead in the 49 minute second half before Modou Lamin Demba struck the third goal to ensured Real de Banjul collect the vital maximum three points.
The result leapfrogged Real de Banjul at the top of the standing above Waa Banjul, Wallidan and Falcons respectively.
“We are happy where we are. It is where we want to be and we are happy that we are there,” said Bye Malleh Wadda who is fondly referred to as BMW.
“We will continue to work to stay up there because our goal from the start is to win the league and if we are on top. We just need to maintain that and if we do not lose then we continue to stay on top.”
According to him, playing the game at Basori really helped them because it is the ground they usually train on.
“We train here. This is our ground. We are comfortable here and we showed that. So, coming back here or everywhere, I think we will perform well. The boys were raring to go. We were eager to have a game because we have been training without playing so it was a good display based on sitting out for weeks,” he said.
Asked about whether Real will continue with such a display without their star-man Kajally Drammeh who moved to South African side Cape Town City two weeks ago, he said: “I think any team that loses a player with Kajally’s ability would miss him but I think we have a good squad that can perform very well. We have performed very well without him and I think we will continue to perform well without him.”
Real gaffer added that they will continue to lose players because that’s part of the team’s model.
“We will continue to lose players and that’s part of the model we do. We want to develop players for the professional level but we had a 30 man squad and we still have 24 players available. We are still going to maintain our status as the best team in the league with or without any player. With the squad we have, I don’t think we will have any problem or that much problem in winning games.”
The defeat continued Elite United’s struggle in the league as they conceded seven defeats with just a single win in eight games.
Elite United maintained the rock-bottom-(16th)-position with just three points.