Gudja United coach Josef Mansueto hailed his team’s character and resilience as the newly-promoted club chalked up their first Premier League win of the season when they upset Birkirkara 3-2 at the Centenary Stadium on Monday.

Gabriel Mensah netted a well-taken brace and Rundell Winchester added a late penalty to hand the southerners a much-needed tonic after a tricky start to their first-ever Premier League campaign. Mansueto’s men have now joined fourth-from-bottom Birkirkara on the seven-point mark.

The Gudja coach said that the win had long been coming and it was nothing less than the players deserved, given the huge sacrifices they made since the start of the season.

“I’m so pleased for my players as they worked really hard for this,” Mansueto said.

“We came into this game following a run of matches, where although we failed to win, we were very close to get the three points. In the majority of our matches, we were tactically disciplined and the players have shown that individually they had nothing less than the other teams.

“Obviously, when you are not winning it’s natural that you start to feel pressure mentally. I told my players that although we had a tough run of fixtures we had to come out of it even stronger and surely this win against Birkirkara is a huge lift for our team.”

Mansueto is now hopeful that this win will help his team to start playing their best football in what he expects to be a very tough and challenging campaign.

“This win had long been coming and hopefully now it will release some of the pressure from my players and inject some much-needed belief that we can play against any side. The 2019-20 season is very close with every team capable of beating each other. Having seven overseas players in the side helps any team to bridge the gap with the top sides,” Mansueto said.

“Obviously, nobody thought that we could beat a team of the quality of Birkirkara but we always keep present from where we started. 

“Three years ago, this team was playing in the second division but slowly we made giants strides forward and won back-to-back promotions to reach the Premier League.

“It’s important now that we remain humble and continue to believe in our potential as I’m sure this team deserves to be much higher in the standings.”

Mansueto singled out for praise man-of-the-match Gabriel Mensah who masterminded Gudja’s win against Birkirkara with his industry and sharp-shooting.

“I was really pleased to hear that Gabriel Mensah was named as man-of-the-match as he was really outstanding,” the former Qormi coach said.

“He is a very humble player with a great attitude and follows my instructions to perfection. Against Birkirkara he had a tough job to press two Birkirkara midfielders when they had possession and then embark on lightning breaks when pushing forward and he did that brilliantly.

“The second goal he scored was marvelous,” Mansueto added when he referred to the Nigerian’s long-range strike.

“When I saw the ball leave his boot, I was pretty sure it was going to hit the back of the net as we see that several times in training. But more than the goals, I was pleased with the way he distributed the ball and created openings in the Birkirkara defence.

“But overall we were outstanding when pushing forward as we made good use of the ball and created several problems to Birkirkara. Actually, we could have scored more so in the end we deserved to win the match.”

Relegation rivals

Next up for Gudja is a match against relegation rivals Tarxien Rainbows, who are bottom of the standings with no points after nine matches, but Mansueto is not underestimating his impending opponents.

“We need to approach every match in the same way,” Mansueto said.
“It’s important to remain humble and keep our concentration levels high. Tarxien may be at the bottom of the standings, but I think that in several matches they deserved much more so we need to be really cautious against them.

“I expect the team to go out with the same intensity we had against Birkirkara as it is not going to be easy. We will have to sweat for the three points as Tarxien will surely make it tough for us.”