AFC Fylde loanee makes an instant impression

The 26-year-old only signed for the Coasters on Monday on a loan deal which runs until January 14.

But he bagged his first goal on his debut on Tuesday night, coming off the bench to net in Fylde’s 2-1 win at Hartlepool United.

Gnahoua, who was brought in as a replacement for Joe Cardle, is exactly the sort of player the Coasters need according to Challinor.

He told The Gazette: “When you come in as an attacking player, to get yourself off the mark and get a goal will obviously do you the world of good in terms of confidence.

“It helps you settle in and hopefully he’ll do that, but that’s what he’s been brought in for.

“I think he’ll give us good options and for him to get a goal on his first appearance is really pleasing.

“We had to be patient (with the deal). Obviously Joe Cardle went out and we knew we wanted to try and get one in and Arthur was one we had enquired about probably a month ago.

“Nothing was doing then but obviously Shrewsbury have had a change in management, which delayed it, but we’ve been patient and we’ve got the one we wanted.

“I think he will be a really big asset for us, especially in the short term until January and we will see from there.”

Gnahoua scored Fylde’s second goal at Victoria Park, after Danny Rowe had earlier given them the lead.

The Coasters were well worthy of the three points but were forced to hold on at the death after Liam Noble converted a penalty five minutes from time.

Challinor insists he was happy with his side’s display but said his players need to be more ruthless in future.

“I was happy with the performance, we were really good value for the win,” he added.

“It was just the way we gave them an opportunity to potentially come away with something when they absolutely didn’t deserve to.

“We should have been sight, so that was the only criticism I had. But I was delighted with our performance.

“We just weren’t ruthless enough with our chances because we should have won that game really comfortably. On another night, through our own doing, we could have cost ourselves two points.

“What we need to do is learn from it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“We need to either kill teams off, like we had the opportunity to do, or manage the game better and don’t give teams a leg up and make what should have been a comfortable evening slightly difficult.”

Fylde have reacted well to their two defeats earlier this month, winning successive games against Boreham Wood and Hartlepool respectively.

“I’m obviously delighted to bounce back and win the two games,” Challinor said.

“But the big thing was, although we lost the two games, our confidence didn’t take too much of a knock because we had performed well.

“I suppose the only danger is that if you keep performing well but you don’t win, then confidence can be affected. But we’ve bounced back.

“I don’t think Boreham Wood was a great game but we’ve got the win late on, and on Tuesday we’ve gone to a difficult place and got three points. So it’s been a really good reaction, one I expected and hoped for, and we now take that into this weekend.”