Having suffered defeat to Morocco in their opening fixture, Milovan Rajevac’s side were under real pressure to stay in the competition. They looked to be feeling the heat after making a sluggish start, but their captain soon injected some life into proceedings. André Ayew received the ball with Anthony Oyono tightly marking him, but the 32-year-old left him for dead with a sharp turn before unleashing a long-range effort that nestled into the bottom corner. That was Ayew’s 10th goal at AFCON tournaments, more than any other Ghana player, and it was a goal befitting the achievement as the Al Sadd forward swept home from 25 yards.
The ‘Panthers’ desperately struggled to provide any attacking threat in a disjointed first-half where a staggering 27 fouls were committed. It was a very similar story for Patrice Neveu’s team after HT, with their best chance of the contest falling on the hour mark. A long ball from defence evaded the Ghana backline and needed an uncertain intervention from Jojo Wollacott to deny Allevinah a tap-in.
Gabon grew into the game as the second half progressed, but weren’t able to frequently test Wollacott in the opposition goal. Allevinah had been a bright spark since coming off the bench and showed his quality to find an equaliser in the dying embers. Ghana were caught cold from a free-kick and the substitute took full advantage, shifting the ball onto his left foot before firing past Wollacott. Gabon look very likely to progress to the knockout stages, while Ghana need to beat Comoros to give themselves a fighting chance. A post-FT red card for Benjamin Tetteh for violent conduct will do little to help their chances.
F
