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Atkinson ‘will be ready’
December 03, 2024
Rudolph Speid believes his Cavalier Soccer Club team suffered offensively after losing Dwayne Atkinson at halftime during the first-leg final of the Concacaf Caribbean Cup against Ciboa of the Dominican Republic at the National Stadium last Tuesday.
Speid said they had a better chance of a bigger win had Atkinson remained on the field, and noted that they even changed strategy after his exit.
However, Speid said the player who has registered 10 assists and nine goals in all competitions this season will be ready to play 90 minutes when they take on Ciboa in today's second leg at the Estadio Cibao in Santiago.
"We had to take off our most influential player, Dwayne Atkinson, who was struggling. He gave us the assist in the first half, but he was really struggling, so why keep him on?
"But he will be ready (for second leg). We will fix him up to be ready for that game, and we won't pull him," he declared.
He also pointed to the winger's impressive numbers this season and how they had to compensate for his absence in the second half.
"We should have got another goal in the first half, but once Atkinson wasn't at his best and when we pulled him, a lot of creativity went," Speid remarked.
"He is our most productive player, the most productive player in Jamaica. He was just a big miss and I think that is the reason why the score is only one. But we decided to pull him and went to a defensive game, which most people say we don't have this year, and held it out," he continued.
