Doma United move to second place with home win over Bayelsa United

By Peter Uwumarogie

Doma United Football Club of Gombe on Sunday moved into second place in the 2022/2023 Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) Group B after a 2-1 win over Bayelsa United.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Match Day 15 fixture at the Pantami Township Stadium saw the hosts missing several goalscoring chances in the second half.

Charles Chibuke scored the first goal for the home side after 53 minutes, while Hillary Ekawu made it two for Doma United after scoring in the 68th minute.

Fabby Clark got the visitors’ lone goal in the 83rd minute.

With the win, Doma United are now second on the Group B log with 25 points, a point behind table-topper Lobi Stars of Makurdi.

Reacting to their new position on the log, Akinade Onigbinde, the Technical Adviser of Doma United, said he was excited that their effort had paid off and “I thank God.”

Onigbinde said his coaching crew colleagues had been working on their goal-scoring art and he was happy the players were responding and getting the results needed.

He, however decried the missed goal-scoring chances, noting that it was a pointer that more work needed to be done to turn those chances into goals.

“We missed a lot of chances today but what made everybody happy is the build-up to the goal-scoring. Our attacking line is now good and I am happy about that.

“Our build-up and transition game from defence to attack is very fast and good.

“During the second half, we wasted more than six glaring goals. We still need to go back and work on that area,” the coach said.

On his part, Dipreye Teibowei, the Technical Adviser of Bayelsa United, expressed his disappointment with the outcome of the match.

Teibowei said his team came to Gombe with the plan of grabbing the maximum points.

“But with this defeat, we will now have to fight to retain our NPFL slot next season.

“We thought that with three points here, we would have been stabilised in the league. But with this, we will go back home and fight for the next three matches and get stabilised.”

While commenting on the performance of the hosts, Teibowei said: “They (Doma United) played good football and we can’t take it from them. They scored beautiful goals.”

He, however, expressed reservations about the officiating of the game, adding that the officiating was somewhat not fair to his team.

(NAN)