1. Poor recruitment: Have scouts been doing proper recruitment? Does the team send scouts to all other league centers to watch games and identify potential players to be poached?
2. Appointment of coaches who have not lived the Hearts experience, far or near, to understand the nitty-gritty of the club. One of these is that Hearts of Oak is in rivalry with Asante Kotoko, both for the bragging rights, and the statistics. One of these is that, supporters need victories, anything less they cannot take them. The worst part is for the team to drop points in home games. This is like a dagger through the heart of the fan base.
3. Former top players of the club like Amankwaah Mireku, Dan Quaye, and Charles Taylor have reservations about the present Hearts team. They have blatantly said that the present crop of players do not deserve the phobian jerseys. It is clear an old player as the coach will do better.
4. Mohammed Polo, arguably the all-time best player of the club, was at one time relieved of his coaching duties over a string of poor results. The man endowed with rich football techniques could not turn around the fortunes of his own football household. It is a pointer to the fact that the talents that are being coached are too raw, if not completely untalented. This is a huge problem. It requires long-term solutions to make something out of this, and trust me the fans would grow impatient if they have to wait.
5. Accra Hearts of Oak Old Players Association, AHOOPA, had cause to complain that the management of the club had disengaged them from the club. If this assertion is true, how ungodly and unwittingly it would have been. Fact is, the old players hoisted the flags higher in their time. They definitely have pieces of advice for the present team.
6. Coaching tactics are factors to the free fall. At the beginning of the
2023/24 league season, Hearts lost away games to Real Tamale United and Sunyani-based Tano Bofoakwa, each by a lone goal. Did the technical bench learn any lessons from the first loss to plan for the next? Was it the case of poor defending, poor goalkeeping, a consistently broken midfield, or simply the result of a lack of teamwork? If the team cannot easily score goals, what are the innovative approaches being introduced to the team to improve on goal scoring? The coach must answer these questions.
7. Part of the coaching is watching the players and past clips on the team. The players need to see the general ambiance in stadia, especially reactions by the fans during matches. The playing body needs to know the sizes of the shoes they are to fill, being the better precedents left by old players.
8. Money talks. Are the players paid well? What are the incentives for the team? Old players have said it time and again that they played for the love of the game. Today’s footballers play not just for that but for plenty of money.
9. Accra Hearts of Oak is a major strand of the spiritual existence of the Ga state. The present players of the club must know this. They must be aware of the huge implications of defeats on the ga state. Again, the club has eminent personalities in the support base. That must inspire them to give their best and bring something better to the plate.
10. Where is Mr Harry Zakkour in whose time as club chairman, Accra Hearts of Oak collected all the trophies? He and past club managers who did the trick and have records of their bests must not be excluded from the present scheme of things. Mr Zakkour for instance was a poacher of great names to the club, his ways must be learnt or he must be brought to the fold to help.