Scottish Prem star went to WRONG stadium for club’s first pre-season friendly
DAVID MARTINDALE hopes Mo Sangare can get things right on the park this season — after turning up at the wrong ground for a game this week.
Liberian midfielder Sangare, 24, arrived from Accrington Stanley earlier this summer.
But he failed to arrive at Lesser Hampden on time to make Martindale’s starting XI against Queen’s Park on Monday because he had gone to the Tony Macaroni Arena instead.
Martindale said: “He’s not the brightest!
“The players were meant to turn up at Hampden at 6.15pm, but he turned up at our stadium.
“He’s just new and it’s going to be a steep learning curve.
“He is a talented footballer and a super kid who is very laidback, which maybe gives you some kind of explanation as to why this happened.
“I spoke to him about attention to detail. You are now playing top tier in Scotland and you need to put more thought process into everything you are doing away from the club. It’s not just picking up points.
“He was going to be starting against Queen’s Park, but he got there half an hour late, an hour before the game.
“He never started, never got on the park and played with the B team on Tuesday night instead.
“It’s now a clean slate for him and we move on.
“There is a wee bit of an adaptation period coming from League One. To be fair I doubt he ever drove to a game there.
“I can see why it went wrong, but he needs to pay more attention. It’s not the first time I’ve had it to be fair, it happens most years.
“It was Dylan Bahamboula last year and funnily enough he was the one phoning Mo saying, ‘Where are you?’.”
Martindale, who has also added Michael Devlin and Miles Welch-Hayes while making drastic cutbacks, still hopes to bring in at least three more new faces.
South African attacker Aphelele Teto has signed a four-year deal in what looks more like a project signing after Martindale spotted the 20-year-old training next to them in Turkey during the World Cup break.
Ahead of Saturday’s trip to Brechin City in their Viaplay Cup opener, Martindale said: “We were over in Turkey and TS Galaxy were training on the park next to us.
“The staff would get there earlier than the players to set up the drills and we used to sit and watch TS Galaxy training and this wee kid was unbelievable.
“We watched them against Giresunspor who are in the Turkish league and wee Teto was fantastic. Honestly, he was brilliant.
“He brought a smile to your face, so I kept in touch with TS Galaxy and over the summer I asked about the chances of getting the boy in, so we struck a deal where there is no upfront fee.
“It’s a win-win. We are going to put one of their players in the shop window. The South African Premier League is a market I probably need to explore a bit more.
“It’s a very good level of football in terms of technical and athletic ability, so we have struck up that partnership.
“TS have a large percentage of any sell-on and we’ll keep a large percentage, so if the player comes in and does well it’s win-win for both parties.
“But I think he is one for the future and I won’t put too much expectation on him.
“I’ve still got three players to get done and probably need to move a couple on. It’s been the most difficult window I’ve had.
“Usually when I get players in the office they want to come but they’ve said, ‘I’m really sorry, I want to play for you, but…’ and the ‘but’ is that they can get more playing for some other club”
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