Rivers United forward Deputy Echeta’s brace, one in each half saw the Pride of RIvers defeat reigning champions Enyimba FC 2-0 in a rescheduled Nigeria Premier Football League Matchday 14 fixture at the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium, Port Harcourt on Tuesday.
The former Bendel Insurance striker gave the Port Harcourt side the lead in the 12th minute before doubling the advantage immediately after the break to give Rivers United maximum points from another outstanding match.
With two outstanding matches left against Doma United and Sporting Lagos, Stanley Eguma’s side are now 11th on the log with 24 points from 17 matches, 12 points away from the top spot.
“The game was explosive as expected and we got our early goal because of the high intensity we adopted. It paid off and the second goal came in too. We also had more chances while Enyimba did well but I’m not surprised we won because we were the better side,” Rivers United coach, Eguma, said after the game.
“Having been on the road for sometime, traveled to Gombe, Enugu and back to Port Harcourt, the effect of the wears and tears of the league but today against all odds to come out with a resounding 2-0 victory is a good one.” Eguma concluded.
Goal scorer, Echeta noted that the Pride of Rivers will keep pushing harder to amass the maximum points in their remaining two outstanding matches.
“I’m so happy with the brace. What a way to open my account with Rivers United and again scoring against the defending Champions.. This is what I’m brought here to do and I hope to do it more and make the Pride of Rivers happy.
“You can see it means a lot to us. Everyone here is happy today with the win. We are trying to get all available points in our outstanding games to push the team up where they belong. We played two already and lost and our plans is to fight for the remaining six points and see where it takes us to.”
Meanwhile, Enyimba, who have been on the ascendancy recently are now fifth in the table with 32 points from 19 matches.
Stand-in coach of the People’s Elephant, Yemi Olanrewaju expects his players to bounce back from the recent slip-up.
“We were careless to have conceded those two goals. But for me congratulations to Rivers United, it was a good game. They took their chances.”
I was angry with the player, you knew he’s a right footed player, instead of closing him, you let him drag you to take a shot. It was a good game and I think we had a better opportunity to score than they did.
“I knew the strength of my players. Atule is just coming back, the same thing with Ekene. A lot of people don’t know we are struggling with the first team players. We have 9 players and a lot of them are just coming back and this is an away game and the pitch is not palatable. We don’t want to throw them in and they get injured. It’s about managing the squad properly”, he said.
Enyimba’s head coach, George Finidi, is on international duty as an assistant coach of the Super Eagles at the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations in Côte d’Ivoire.
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