Tuesday, May 26,2026 was about to end, the same way it started, but Ghana Premier League club Accra Hearts of Oak were just not in the mood for that; they had to do what they do best, drop a club statement.
Oh yes, a club statement announcing the departure of head coach Mas-Ud Didi Dramani and his entire technical team on that date, following a comprehensive end-of-season review of the 2025/26 Ghana Premier League campaign.
I had to read the statement again to get the full scale understanding of it before I could lay down my reservations in writing.
Hearts of Oak is one of the two biggest franchises when it comes to Ghanaian football, have dominated the league alongside their sister club, Kotoko, for so many years, but the hierarchy of the Accra-based club will agree that a lot of things have taken a nosedive at the club.
In their ambition to get the club back to its glory days of the late 2000’s, they have struggled for consistency, fans have had to endure turbulent times, sleep on an empty stomach, be mocked endlessly by friends, limit their social interactions, all because of the club.
In the past ten years, the club has won the league just once, and that was under treble-winning coach Samuel Boadu in the 2020/21 season. In the last five years, three clubs (Medeama SC, GoldStars, Samartex) based in the Western part of the country have won four in five league titles. Does that tell you something?
What are they Westerners doing right? What is Hearts of Oak doing wrong ?
So what were the objectives of the club for Didi Dramani ahead of the just ended 2025/6 to warrant his sacking ?
Despite the glaring lack of quality within the Hearts of Oak playing setup, a FIFA-imposed transfer ban, and limited squad reinforcements mid-season, he managed to create an oasis in an arid region, racking 24 clean sheets in 34 matches – an impressive feat that underscored the coach’s emphasis on organization and discipline. The team conceded just 15 goals while securing 13 wins, 15 draws, and 6 losses.
So when the statement came out announcing his sacking, I kept asking myself if he had put a foot wrong in the title race. Yes, there were a few times when the results could have been better. There were moments when draws could have been turned into wins. There were times Medeama SC and GoldStars fumbled results only for Hearts of Oak to repeat the dosage of drawing, 15 , annoyingly, 13 of them were goalless.
The downside of this was that the team picked just 28 points from 54, 8 better than Hohoe United and 11 than Eleven Wonders, who have since been relegated, such a poor stat during his tenure.
But the highlight of his season tenure was an impressive 26 points away from home, conceding just 8 from 17 games, the closest to this was eventual league winners, Medeama SC, with 22 points.
The team structure was evident for all to see; the team cohesion, compactness, defensive organization, and resoluteness gave fans the mantra that until the team scored, you can’t score a goal past the defense.
The decision to sack the head coach has been greeted with mixed opinions. While some supporters feel agrieved by the team’s inability to win the league, they forget that until the foundational lapses are fixed, DJ Lalu will continually put the mixxes on repeat while others creep over their shoulders to their heads to steal the limelight.
I will be on the lookout during the off-season to see who the board and management deem fit to steer the club technically in the right direction for the upcoming season.