Enyimba Aims For Top Spot At Heartland

Five-time Premier League champion, Enyimba, is spoiled for a showdown in neighbouring Owerri against Heartland Football Club in a rescheduled Week 27 game.

The Peoples Elephant’s head coach, Okey Emordi, could reclaim leadership of the Premier League table again from Kano Pillars by defeating the Naze Millionaires on Thursday at the Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri.

Since October 2005, the Peoples Elephant has enjoyed a good spell against the Naze Millionaires in Owerri till date without losing a game.

In the 2007/2008 season precisely on October 24, 2007, Enyimba trounced Heartland FC in front of its own fans by 3 – 0.

Last season in this same fixture, Enyimba under the guidance of Austin Eguavoen as head coach left the Dan Anyiam Stadium with a point after playing goalless on March 18, 2009 to the dismay of Heartland fans.

Coincidentally, Emordi was part of the Heartland FC technical staff and knows the inside-out of the club.

Though the Peoples Elephant has become a bogie team to Heartland in Owerri, former Enugu Rangers’ coach said he does not rely on such stats going in this tie, which he describes as a game his side must win to topple Kano Pillars at the top of the Premier League log.

Emordi also recalled the goalless outing in the reverse fixture between his side and Heartland last November in Aba and expects a stiffer challenge from the Owerri-based club.

“It is going to be a difficult game in Owerri because Heartland would not want to lose to us and we will not want to lose as well because that will mean that we would have lost our place as the leading team on the league table.

“Remember that when we met them (Heartland) this season, it was a very difficult game for us. It ended 0 – 0 and we shared the points. But this is going to be a different game for us especially now that we are getting close to the end of the season. It is also important that we win.

“But I know that Heartland will be difficult. We respect them but we are not afraid to face them and get the kind of result we want to make sure that our title aspirations remain intact,” he told Naijaligue.blogspot.com.