John Yems backs Aramide Oteh to silence his critics after scoring at Harrogate

Posted Wednesday, February 09, 2022 by PA

Crawley manager John Yems believes Aramide Oteh will silence his critics after opening his account during only his second appearance for the club.

Oteh opened the scoring during a 3-1 win at Harrogate with Nicholas Tsaroulla and Tom Nichols going on to wrap up maximum points after Brahima Diarra had levelled for the hosts.

Ex-QPR striker Oteh had only managed to net once in 10 league outings for Salford and just once in 13 for Colchester before moving to Sussex last week but Yems has every confidence in the 23-year-old’s potency.

Yems said: “I’ve been told by people that Rami can’t score, but I saw him play at QPR and I know he can score and the way we will play he will get chances.”

Yems also argued with justification that his team were deserved winners, adding: “We got our just rewards for the work we put in. The referee tried his best to ruin it for us in the first half when I thought we should have had a penalty, but we can’t worry about that and we earned the win.

“When it went 1-1, I could hear some of our fans moaning and perhaps a few thought we were going to melt again but the substitutes came on and did well and that’s what they are there for – they’re not just there to make up the numbers. It’s now all about the big ‘C’ word, because all the players need to show consistency.

“Everybody put in a shift and, don’t get me wrong, that should just be the starting point in every game.”

Harrogate boss Simon Weaver also bemoaned his side’s lack of consistency and declared that 18-year-old loan signing Diarra was setting the example in that respect.

“They deserved the win,” the home boss admitted.

“We made individual errors that cost us and it was Kamikaze stuff at the back at times.

“They also had a centre-forward in Nichols who was a cut above what was on show in our centre-forward play. We had certain players who were good enough to win the game but, as a team, we did not do enough.

“I look at our wide men and think they are top-three material, but we’ve got to feed them and look after them.

“Our style has always been to play 4-4-2 and get at teams and, at 18, Brahima Diarra is showing the consistency required to be higher up at this level but, maybe, we are in a period of our time in the Football League where we are learning about players.

“If you can get three out of four performances that are of the required standard from players then that’s OK, but we’re probably getting two out of five from some at the moment.”