Enyimba can bank on away form to secure continental football, says Fatai Osho

Enyimba coach Fatai Osho is hopeful his team’s away form can help earn the Aba side a top-three finish in the Nigeria Professional Football League.
Osho’s side sit second on the away table of the NPFL — though tied on points with away table leaders Akwa United, who are also overall table leaders — after picking up 19 points from 17 games on the road.
They also lie fourth in the overall table — six points adrift of Akwa United but tied on points with second-placed Nasarawa United and Kano Pillars, who occupy third spot — and have two away games to navigate.
The two-time CAF Champions League winners will face Lobi Stars in Makurdi on Wednesday, return home to play Sunshine Stars, before making a trip to Dakkada.
Osho believes his team can rack up the points in their last two away matches in order to improve their chances of securing a top-three finish.
“If you look at the record of the Enyimba team this season, we’ve done so well when we go on away ground. The next match is an away game, and I see positivity,” the former Remo Stars gaffer told the press after his side earned a hard-fought 2-1 win against MFM at home on Sunday.
“We’re good on the road. We’re really good on the road, and that’s encouraging. On Monday morning, we go on the road to Makurdi [to face Lobi Stars] and from there, we see what happens.”
Against MFM, Enyimba adopted the 4-2-4 formation owing to midfield injury crisis.
Osho praised his players for adhering to his game plan.
“We’ve to commend them for sticking to our tactical agreement prior to the match. We were quite aware that we had two midfielders in the team, and look at what we did? Those midfielders tried to play simple.
“We didn’t want a situation where they go on a one-on-one combat and can’t continue. Every time we got the ball, we took it wide; we got wide every now and then and tried to see what we could do.
“We could have been a little bit creative if we had the numbers in the middle. For the first time ever we were playing this formation and for them to stick to it and carry it out to this extent, they deserve a whole lot of commendation,” he concluded.