Dickoh raring to go after a miserable year at Utrecht

The Ghana international signed a one-year deal with Hibs on Tuesday and is keen to get back to playing regular football again after falling out of favour at FC Utrecht. The 27-year-old defender made 93 first-team appearances during his four years with the Dutch club, scoring five times in the process, before things took a turn for the worse and he fell out with manager Ton Du Chatinier. "Injuries, bad form and not the best relationship with the manager," he cited as reasons for his downturn. "I have played a lot for Utrecht but I would rather forget last season because all the things that could go wrong did go wrong.

"Pretty much everything went wrong. I was injured at a bad time. I had a really, really good start to the season, the first ten games were really good, but then I got a calf injury and the team didn't wait for me to recover. After that I couldn't get back into the team and the team performed well, and I understood that - but I didn't understand the trainer."

Dickoh jumped at the chance to make the switch to Scotland after speaking with new team-mate Edwin De Graaf on the phone and receiving good reports about life at Easter Road.

Having seen the stadium and training facilities first-hand, first impressions have been favourable for Dickoh and he is confident that he can play his way into new manager John Hughes' plans.

"It happened quite quickly. I heard the interest five or six days ago and when the offer came I jumped at it. It's a new challenge and I'm looking forward to it. I knew Edwin from the Dutch competition, where I played against him numerous times, and I asked him about the club and the surroundings and he said 'thumbs up', so I went for it.

"It's amazing. People have told me that the weather is not always like it has been in the last few days but looking at the pitches and the accommodation around the stadium and everything it's perfect. My main target is to get many games under my feet. I want to play all the games but obviously it's up to the coach and it's up to me to show I'm ready. When I get to my normal level I hope to compete for a spot."

Because of his lack of first-team football with Utrecht, Dickoh also missed out on any chance he had of representing his country at the recent World Cup. He has a number of caps and would have loved to have added more in South Africa this summer but, instead of looking backwards, prefers instead to hope that a consistent run of games in the Hibs side might help him earn an international recall.

"I was born and raised in Denmark, by Ghanaian parents and that's why I have played international games for Ghana.

"If you take all the Scandinavian languages - Norwegian, Swedish and Danish - I can speak six languages. I have 13 or 14 caps for Ghana and of course I would like to add to that. I want to get back on my feet at Hibs and after that I'll challenge for a spot in the Ghana team. I was in the squad for the African Cup of Nations in 2006 but I have missed both the World Cups since then.

"I know all the boys in the Ghana squad and you want to be a part of it, but if you're not you're their number one supporter. I thought it was a sad way to go out of the World Cup but it wasn't to be. They had a penalty to go through and they missed it and in the penalty shoot-out they lost all their energy and all their belief."

Dickoh left Utrecht less than a week after the Dutch side knocked Celtic out of the Europa League and, although he knew that his time with the club could be coming to an end, he was delighted for his friends and colleagues to be able to celebrate such a famous victory.

Insisting that the Utrecht players always believed they could overturn a 2-0 deficit from the first leg, he added: "I think Celtic came with a sloppy attitude, thinking that it was already done. I spoke with Marc-Antoine Fortune of Celtic after the game and he was obviously really sad because he was leaving the club and it was a sad way to go. He came back to his former team and he got hammered, so it wasn't good for him.

"For sure, we felt as if we could still go through after the first leg because, in terms of football, we were equal. Celtic had more tempo and more physical aspects to their game and that shocked a lot of players that were inexperienced at international level. The whole atmosphere at Celtic Park was overwhelming for some players, I think.

"But, at home, Utrecht knew they could do something and to get two penalties within 20 minutes helped a lot. I was definitely happy for the team. It was a good dressing room and I made not only good colleagues but good friends there so I was happy for the team."