Head coach of Ashanti Gold Sporting Club, Bashir Hayford is adamant the players who won the league for the club last season are still around.

The Miners ended almost decades wait to lift the Ghana Premier league title last year. A successful campaign ended with the defending selling about four key players: Lawrence Lartey, Didier Kore and Henry Traore.

Football pundits believes the presence of the trio could have made an impact their Africa Inter-club football campaign which ended abysmally and spur them to defend the league title.

But the former Kotoko technical brainer insist his team won’t miss them.

“Why should it affect my team?” Bashir Hayford quizzed in an interview with Ultimate FM.

“Lawrence Lartey didn’t play that many games with us last season, Didier Kore was mostly coming in as a sub and Henri Traore was not first choice and Yakubu (Mohammed) and (Bernard) Morrison left before the end of the season.

“So all those who helped us win the title are still here. Of course we will remember them but it won’t affect us that much,” Hayford said.

Ashanti Gold has four points out of possible six and will travel to Kumasi on Wednesday to play regional neighbours, Asante Kotoko.