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Eddie Chikamhi
Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE international midfielders Marvelous Nakamba and Marshal Munetsi were the toast of the Warriors foreign-based contingent after leading their teams to important wins at the weekend.
Nakamba was hailed for his workaholic attitude in Luton Town’s 2-0 derby win over Watford in the English Championship on Saturday while Munetsi scored his sixth goal in the French Ligue 1 this season to help Stade de Reims thrash Nantes 3-0 the following day.
Munetsi was on target in the 58th minute after he latched onto a rebound from the cross bar, with his team already leading 2-0.
Reims had taken the lead courtesy of Alexis Flips’ first half brace. They recovered from last week’s 1-2 defeat to Marseille, which was their first loss in six months.
The game against Marseille was also Munetsi’s 100th for Reims and he was honoured by the club for the milestone.
Reims have now moved into seventh place on the log standings and have European football in sight, thanks to a fine run under the tutelage of William Still, who has suffered only one loss in 21 games since he took over the reins in October last year. Across the English Channel, Nakamba continued to attract admirers following his amazing contributions for Luton Town on Saturday. Luton Town fans were begging him to stay beyond his loan spell, which runs until June, following yet another fine outing.
Nakamba was given the highest rating of 9.5 by Luton Today correspondent Mike Simmonds. “Easily becoming one of the best loan signings Luton have ever made as his reading of the game was second to none from the word go,” commented Simmonds in his post-match review.
“In the right place every single time to get the ball off his Watford opponents, making an amazing 10 tackles throughout the contest and kept it neat and tidy too. When he plays, Town just don’t concede from open play, it’s that simple.” Football website Whoscored.com said Nakamba has had outstanding statistics in Luton Town colours. He arrived at the second-tier club on deadline day of the January transfer after he was shipped out by English premiership side Aston Villa.
“Luton Town have only conceded two goals from open play in the last 13 games and Marvelous Nakamba in a big part of that. He made 10 tackles in the win over Watford; no player has made more in a Championship match this season.” Luton Town secured their EPL promotion play-offs berth with the win. They are currently in fourth place with 67 points. Vincent Kompany’s Burnley have since secured automatic qualification with Sheffield United primed for the second automatic slot.
Sheffield United are on 73 points, five points ahead of Luton Town, with three games remaining in the season.
But Luton could still apply pressure on them in the remainder of the season. Gabe Osho and Allan Campbell were on target against their fierce rivals Watford on Saturday to cement their promotion play-offs place.
Manager Rob Edwards was impressed by the way in which his side were able to manage the occasion. He added: “It was a new experience for me, so it was how we tried to go about it during the week. “We were talking about keeping 11 men on the pitch and not getting carried away, we needed fire at the right times, but then we needed control, controlled aggression, in terms of what’s going on up here (head).
“We needed to try and make good decisions, we knew it would be a bit of a cauldron and if we were winning as well, we knew it was going to be even more so. “So it’s about not, not playing with emotion as that’s what I want to see, I want our players doing that, but not getting lost in that and making silly decisions, so that was the most pleasing part.
“We felt each other out for the first 10, 12 minutes or so and then I thought we really grew into it and the game seemed to be the majority of it, we had the territory.”
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