{"id":83691,"date":"2015-01-19T14:04:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T14:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=83691"},"modified":"2015-01-19T14:54:46","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T14:54:46","slug":"afcon-2015-gyan-dropped-ghana-xi-senegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=83691","title":{"rendered":"AFCON 2015: Gyan misses Ghana&#8217;s opener against Senegal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #292f33;\">The Black Stars will be without captain Asamoah Gyan for their 2015 African Cup of Nations opener against Senegal later today [Monday] after failing to recover from a &#8220;mild case of malaria.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Olympique Marseille\u00a0midfielder\u00a0Andre Ayew will now captain the team for the game.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #292f33;\">[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;x8LktgMPxi4iGHVQ3z5eDY5GsYl9FEFv&#8221;]The Al Ain striker was a major doubt for the game after being rushed to the hospital over the weekend and sitting out the Stars&#8217; final training session on Sunday. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #292f33;\">Head Coach Avram Grant had stated that Gyan would be assessed on Monday to determine if he could be picked for the game but confirmation of the striker&#8217;s loss will be a big blow to the Stars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>FC Lorient striker Jordan Ayew will now lead the line for Ghana against Senegal.<\/p>\n<p>Goalkeepr Razak Braimah keeps his place in goal and will be protected by a back line of Augsburg&#8217;s Baba Rahman, Harrison Afful, Awal Mohammed and Jonathan Mensah, although there are suggestions that Grant will employ a three-man defence with AFCON debutant Richard Amartey dropping back.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_83697\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-83697\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-83697 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/AFCON-Field.jpg\" alt=\"AFCON Field\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-83697\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Groundsman gets the Mongomo pitch ready for the game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Regular center-back John Boye \u00a0failed to make the starting line-up despite training with the team on Sunday while Rabiu Mohammed and Emmanuel Agyeman Badu remain ever presents in the center of midfield for the Stars.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_36384\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36384\" style=\"width: 644px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/boye.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-36384\" src=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/boye.png\" alt=\"John Boye\" width=\"644\" height=\"335\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-36384\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">John Boye<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Perhaps the most surprising\u00a0inclusion\u00a0in the starting line-up is that\u00a0of Everton&#8217;s Christian Atsu who only recently recovered from injury and has struggled to make an impact at the Toffees since his move on-loan from Chelsea.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ghana starting \u00a0XI vrs Senegal<\/strong>: Razak Braimah, Harrison\u00a0Afful, Baba Rahman, Awal Mohammed, Jonathan Mensah, Daniel Amartey, Rabiu Mohammed, Emmanuel Agyeman Badu, Christian Atsu, Andre Dede Andre, Jordan Ayew. <strong>Coach<\/strong>: Avram Grant<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>By: Edwin Kwakofi\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<br \/>\n<a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EdKwakofi\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @EdKwakofi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Black Stars will be without captain Asamoah Gyan for their 2015 African Cup of Nations opener against Senegal later today [Monday] after failing to recover from a &#8220;mild case of malaria.&#8221; Olympique Marseille\u00a0midfielder\u00a0Andre Ayew will now captain the team for the game. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;x8LktgMPxi4iGHVQ3z5eDY5GsYl9FEFv&#8221;]The Al Ain striker was a major doubt for the game [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,43,3],"class_list":["post-83691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}