Kenyan International Joseph Okumu missed Gent’s two-all draw with KV Kortrijk on Friday evening after returning a positive covid test according to different publications in Belgium.The Buffalos came from behind in the first half to level the scores with just a minute left to the break courtesy of Alessio Castro-Montes after Dylan Mbayo had given Kortrijk the lead.Ilombe Mboyo gave Gent the lead seven minutes after the restart but Mbayo struck in stoppage time to complete his brace and ensure that the points were shared at Gent against a team that had a makeshift backline.Tried to copy Virgil Van Dijk’s Player Traits 📊to find promising CBs + found these:Igor Diveev – CSKAJoseph Okumu – GentMykola Matviyenko – ShakhtarTraits: possession security, 1st contact in air, win tackles, low fouls, good unit, rarely beaten 1v1, play frwd, block shots pic.twitter.com/od13ZinPbT— Andy Forrester (@AndyForrester1) January 11, 2022 The reports come just days after returning from Spain where Gent took on AZ Alkmaar in a friendly match that the latter went on to win by a solitary goal.Okumu was one of the four players who managed to clock full minutes in the match played exactly a week ago, with Bruno Godeau, Andreas Hanche-Olsen, and Davy Roef being the other three.Leading Belgium publication Voetbalnieuws reported on Friday that Gent would be missing the pair of Okumu and Bruno Godeau who had returned positive results upon testing in readiness for the match.Against Kortrijk, Gent were also missing Michael Ngadeu, Tarik Tissoudali, and Sulayman Marreh who were on duty with Cameroon, Morocco, and Gambia in the Africa Cup of Nations.Met deze 1️⃣1️⃣ gaan we vol voor de drie punten tegen @kvkofficieel! 🔵⚪ #COBW #gntkvk #jpl pic.twitter.com/TejwJkIHha— KAA Gent (@KAAGent) January 14, 2022 The former Chemelil Sugar defender has religiously featured for Gent since making the switch from Elfsborg and would have been a good selection for Gent’s tactician Hein Van Haezebrouck as he would provide the much-needed defensive leadership with Ngadeu and Tissoudali both out with their national teams.The Belgium Pro League was making a return from a two-week break, with Gent and Kortrijk kicking off round 22 that both teams would have wanted postponed having in mind that the visitors had also been hit by a covid wave, but the request was denied.Up next for Gent is an away match against RC Sporting Charleroi on Saturday next week. (function (el) { window.addEventListener(“message”, (event) => { if (event.origin.startsWith(“https://www.sofascore”)) { if (el.id === event.data.id) { el.style.height = event.data.height + “px”; } } }); })(document.getElementById(“sofa-standings-embed-38-36894”)); Standings provided by SofaScore LiveScore
