Sunshine Stars coach, Solomon Ogbeide, has attributed his side's lack of cutting edge in front of goal in their 0-1 home defeat to Kano Pillars in Sunday's Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) game at the Akure Stadium.
He agreed that the former NPFL champions, Kano Pillars, equally created scoring opportunities but feels that his team had loads of chances to have put the game to bed before their opponents scored with eight minutes left from Adamu Mohammed's effort.
Ogbeide also thinks that luck deserted his team when Dele Olorundare's headed attempt came off the post at some point in the match.
"It is often so in football that when you play well and do not convert the chances you create you get punished. That is what happened in this game. It is not as if Pillars did not play well to deserve their victory but my boys failed to take the so many chances they created. It was also a bit of hard luck especially if you consider the header by Dele Olorundare which hit the bar. I had thought the ball was already in," he told npfl.ng.
Pillars will have substitute, Mohammed, who came on for Omo Johnson to thank for the winner which he drilled into the corner of the far post following a goalmouth tussle that left Sunshine Stars goalkeeper, Ikechukwu Ezenwa, with a poor view of the ball.
The Kano-based club almost doubled their lead in the 89th minute when Prince Aggreh received a through pass in the box with Ezenwa at his mercy but he chose not to pull the trigger, preferring instead to cut inside of a retreating Sunshine Stars defender who stuck out a leg to take the ball off him.
Sunshine Stars' late charge to remedy situation came to no avail as Dayo Ojo fired from range on three occasions in the 83rd, 84th and 88th minutes but Pillars keeper, Yusuf Mohammed, kept producing saves after saves.
The Pillars goalkeeper, Mohammed, proved to be the stumbling block for Sunshine Stars as he had also produced several such saves in the first half to nullify the chances that Sunshine Stars created.
The encounter was opened with Sunshine Samad Kadiri breaking in twice in the early minutes but Mohammed rushed out on those occasions to stop his shots just as Dayo Ojo's 25th minute strike was blocked by the Pillar' defence.
Sunday Abe attempted two brilliant free kicks in the first half but one found the side-net while Yusuf Mohammed parried the other for a corner kick. Lanky defender, Stephen Eze, also showed up for several corner kicks but his attempt in the 27th minute was also block off to the corner.
Sunshine Stars got close to drawing the first blood in the 70th minute as hard working substitute Dele Olorundare ran into a cross and nodded powerfully but his effort was returned by the bar.
It was a game in which Pillars demonstrated great tactical depth, keeping the pace under control, ensuring good presence in the midfield and measuring their movements on the attack while Sunshine Stars kept probing and getting no answers.
Kano Pillars have now moved into second place with 24 points while Sunshine Stars sit in 14th postion with seven points less.