By Sulayman Bah
Gambia striker Ibou Sawaneh and Belgian club KSV Roeselare have gone top of the play-off table into the New Year.
Roeselare topped matters in the regular league continuing the trend well into the promotion play-offs competition.
The White and Blacks take charge of events at the summit with fourteen points in six matches and are yet to lose a game.
The chase to secure promotion to the Belgian Premier league is one of a hot dog fight but KSV Roeselarae have an all revived Ibou Sawaneh to heavily rely on when they resume action January 8th 2017. They face Tubize on the road before following that up with a rematch with Lommel United two days later.
Ibou is dissing out reminders of the talent he still can be after scoring in his third consecutive game last weekend.
Sawaneh’s touch of gold began when he made most of a rare start two weeks ago, beginning with a brilliant effort against Lommel United following that with another jaw-dropping goal against his former club OH Leuven; inflicting perhaps a punishment on the club for shooing him out of the door in 2014 in a fall-out that cost him a move to Bayer Leverkusen.
Ibou have had to sit out in the cold waiting for opportunities. It was hoped, he would virtually have no qualms in stamping his foot mark in the second tier.
And after putting behind those low moments, the 30-year-old is all revived and is in no mood to slow down just yet. A deadly grenade on his day in office, the striker is showing he’s an embodiment of class being permanent.
Sawaneh continued his prepossessing run with a fine brace in Roeselare’s consolidation of their position atop in the promotion play-offs.
Ibou began the show in the lineup and took no further than nine minutes to make his presence felt, beating the offside trap to swirl home the opening goal.
Brugge evened matters via a Yan’s 23rd minute effort but the Gambian made sure there wouldn’t be a sharing of the staked points tapping home a beauty to double the advantage with teammate Cornet’s last-gasp goal adding to the cherry.