admin
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
RESURGENT GreenFuel FC coach Rodwell Dhlakama believes that 80 percent of the teams in the Castle Lager Premier League are still fighting the dreaded relegation chop with 16 rounds of matches into the 2023 season.
Since he took over as head coach, Dhlakama has transformed the Lowveld-based team into a competitive outfit capable of beating any club in the top-flight league. Last week on Saturday, GreenFuel surprised everyone, including themselves, when they dismissed highly fancied Dynamos by a solitary goal at Gibbo Stadium in Triangle.
The result took the ethanol producers to position 12 on the table, two slots above the drop zone.
While he acknowledges that his team is not yet safe from relegation, the former Monomotapa and Ngezi Platinum coach is also convinced that about 80 percent of the teams in the Castle Lager Premiership are fighting relegation.
“Progressively, I think we are doing a great job in picking points against very big teams. We are in the right direction as we are upstaging big teams. We still have a lot of matches to play until the season ends. We also have a chance to beef up our squad during the transfer window period.
“Our chances for survival are just as good as any other team. We cannot single ourselves out and say we are fighting relegation. I think 80 percent of the teams in the PSL are fighting relegation except maybe for Highlanders, Ngezi Platinum, Manica Diamonds, FC Platinum and Chicken Inn. All the other teams are actually fighting relegation, CAPS United included.
“Surely, you cannot say you are out of relegation just because you are above the relegation zone by three or four points, which is just one or two matches. We still have to play 15 or 16 league matches. A team out of relegation by 15 points plus, yes those ones are safe,” he said.
On the match against Dynamos, Dhlakama said his squad made corrections from the lessons learnt in their previous encounter against CAPS United.
“Going into that match we were coming from a defeat against CAPS United and if you look at the performance against CAPS United, there was nothing much in terms of what they did to win the match. It is only that we gave them the victory on a silver platter, all because of our school boy blunders that resulted in the two goals they scored.
“However, when you look at our performance, we were a better team in terms of exchanges. We were a better team in terms of combinations and partnerships. When we played Dynamos, we knew the mistakes that we made in the previous match and we had to correct them.
“We expected to win against Dynamos, and we won, but the turning point was when they got a soft penalty which they failed to convert. I think that gave us a lot of confidence because had they scored that penalty, it was going to see us chasing the game. Chasing the game is always difficult especially when playing against a big team like Dynamos with all the quality players they have,” he said.
The eloquent GreenFuel FC gaffer is of the opinion that fielding youngsters paid off against Dynamos.
“What we did correctly was to inject some youngsters into the team, which gave us the energy that was needed in such a high profile match. We used about seven or eight youngsters with an average of 18 to 21 years. We also had experienced players in the form of goalkeeper, David Bizabani, Honest Moyo and Xolisani Ndlovu. So we matched Dynamos because they also had some youngsters in their team. It made the match so physical and intense.
“Going forward, I think the youngsters now have the confidence that they can play against any team in the league and win, Dynamos included. The fixture did favour us in terms of the teams that we had to play against for the past six matches,” he said.
Dhlakama also believes that even though the recent fixtures have been difficult, his charges acquitted themselves well.
“We played against Chicken Inn, FC Platinum, Bulawayo Chiefs,CAPS United and Dynamos. All these teams are in the upper echelons of the table. No-one gave us a chance to win any of those matches.
“But we managed to win against Bulawayo Chiefs, Dynamos and drew against Chicken Inn even though we went on to lose against FC Platinum by a narrow margin and CAPS United.
“If you look at the way we lost against FC Platinum, it could have been avoided had it not been because of other forces we cannot talk about here. Everyone saw what happened. The only match we lost fairly was against CAPS United because of our own blunders,” he said.
Online Reporter