Bosso need to gel

During their match against Chapungu, on more than six occasions, Highlanders players found themselves getting in each other’s way, with the main culprits being in the crucial midfield and strike force area.
Exciting Peter Moyo, seemingly given a free role, would find himself colliding with either young Knox Mutizwa or Milton Ncube and that gave their opponents time to recover even when under siege and back-pedalling.

The strike force of Graham Ncube and Masimba Mambare, while individually talented and full of vision, never really complemented each other.
During the first and even the second half, Ncube would throw a dummy to the Chapungu defence, probably expecting his partner to read his run, only for Mambare to completely miss it.

“Our finishing is bad but these are the strikers I have and I have to make them deliver so we will work hard before the season starts,” said coach Kelvin Kaindu in a post-match interview.
The coach might not have realised that it is less than a week before the season starts and if he did not work on that from 16 January, the day he came here, what miracle can he perform in seven days?

What he needs to realise is that his twin strike force of Ncube and Mambare was always surrounded by four or more Chapungu players because they are generally slow.

Each time the ball was released to the strikers, Moyo was nowhere to be seen in support while the wingers Mutizwa and Ncube were also flat-footed on many occasions and the man who was supposed to push them was Simon Munawa.
The central defence of captain Innocent Mapuranga and Eric Mudzingwa and later Dumisani Ndlovu, has a lot of promise. They were communicating well and never panicked even inside the box, which is good.

Munawa, Moyo and Ncube were guilty of not winning individual tussles and this cost the team and something should be done to avoid such a scenario. What Munawa needs to do as an anchorman is to drive the engine room in such a way that every time his linkman and the two midfield wingers are in front of him they move as he moves and in the process adding numbers to the final third which is where Ncube and Mambare operate from.

The experienced Mapuranga had to take it upon himself to venture into the enemy box, something which should be done by Munawa.
Credit though should be given to the technical bench who realised that their midfield was playing second fiddle to their opponents and changed their system to a 3-5-2 formation and had they done that with 20 or so minutes remaining, victory would have been secured.

Kaindu sacrificed the otherwise impressive Atlast Musasa for Mthulisi Maphosa and operated with a three-man defence of Mapuranga, Ndlovu and Munawa.
Young goalkeeper Archford Katsande, a juniors product, showed a lot of promise despite conceding a goal and first choice Ariel Sibanda will certainly be kept on his toes, what with veteran Munyaradzi Diya joining Highlanders this year.