Pasuwa fears CAPS backlash

troops back in training at Raylton Sports Club yesterday and emerged from their two-hour workout to reveal his fear that his players might adopt the “wrong attitude to the game simply because CAPS United are struggling’’.
CAPS United hogged the limelight for the wrong reasons this week when they stuttered to a record sixth straight league defeat following their 1-0 reverse at Black Mambas.
It is Makepekepe’s longest losing streak since the inception of the modern era of the top-flight game.
Not even a change in the coaching department that brought in Taurai Mangwiro for Northern Irishman Sean Connor has helped CAPS United from sinking to new depths that are worse than their 2008 record when they lost five straight games under Luke Masomere.
But Pasuwa insisted that those statistics are for the CAPS United family to worry about and wants his players to remain focused as he believes they have a very tough assignment at hand.
Pasuwa, who has faced CAPS United for over a decade either as a player or coach, maintained that derby ties had a knack of tearing the form books apart and he is worried that their city rivals might choose the big stage at Rufaro on Sunday to finally turn on the corner.
“I would have loved to actually face a CAPS United team that would have been winning or doing well because unlike the first time they will really be wounded lions on Sunday. I had not noticed that they have gone for so long without winning and if we are not careful they could be hungrier than us to win and that is what I have been warning these players about.
“It must also be remembered that CAPS United are not a bad side, they are just going through a rough patch but we do not want to become the first team they will beat after such a long losing run,’’ Pasuwa said.
The Glamour Boys coach said he had also reminded his players about their “poor approach to their league game against lowly Blue Rangers two weeks ago which ended in a 1-1 draw and left him livid.
“I had spent the whole week emphasising that our 6-0 win against Blue Rangers was history but then these players somehow still underestimated Blue Rangers and in the end we made life difficult for ourselves and dropped two important points.
“I will not want a repeat of that when we play CAPS United and I have also tasked such senior players like Desmond Maringwa and Murape Murape to help in talking to these youngsters and making them understand that every team whether it is a Division One side or a social team wants to beat Dynamos.
“The fact that we are the champions even makes all the teams that we play against to be eager to win, they come to us highly motivated and that is what we should expect from CAPS United on Sunday.
“So we should do the business on the field first and then talk after the game’’.
Pasuwa said DeMbare were also under pressure to maintain their winning streak if they are to stay within shouting distance of log leaders Highlanders who have an eight-point cushion ahead of them at the top.
Apart from being worried about the possibility of a CAPS United backlash, Pasuwa also revealed his concerns about his strikers who have struggled to find the target with the kind of regularity that Takesure Chinyama had been providing the goals.
Chinyama is now at Orlando Pirates.
“In most of our games we are creating the chances some of them just across goal but we are not putting them away. At times that is largely due to the mental strength of the players we have at the moment.
“They are putting themselves under pressure to score goals. I have been trying to encourage guys like Rodreck Mutuma and Derrick Kabwe not to put themselves under too much pressure to score . . . if they can help to create the goals what is more important is that the team wins.
“Kabwe has been getting into scoring positions but we are working on his finishing, I think it’s the technique that he needs to polish up on and we are helping him with that.
“Mutuma has been putting himself under pressure so much that now he sometimes drifts away from the box and he is running around too much looking for the ball when he should be there lurking in the box and waiting to pounce, that is how he got most of his goals last season’’.
Mutuma, the Premiership’s Golden Boot award winner last year, has been having an indifferent season and has failed to find his range with the same regularity that marked his arrival at Dynamos.
With Martin Vengesai, Mutuma and Zambian Kabwe struggling to provide the spark in attack that is needed for the successful defence of their championship title, Dynamos with his goal drought stretching every week, Dynamos have turned to their midfielders such as Denver Mukamba, Farai Mupasiri and Tawanda Muparati for the goals.
It is also against this background that Pasuwa is anxious to have former Highlanders forward Obadiah Tarumbwa in his ranks.
Tarumbwa, who has spent the last few years plying his trade in Cyprus, had appeared to have secured a deal to play for Dynamos last month but that move has apparently been stalled owing to a few glitches between his management team and the DeMbare leadership. It also emerged yesterday that Tarumbwa’s management team, who also handle Chinyama, are not amused that the Dynamos executive have delayed in releasing the big forward’s international clearance to enable the former Legia Warsaw man make his Pirates debut.
Dynamos secretary-general Ray Kazembe referred all questions to club chairman Kenny Mubaiwa, who however could not be reached for comment. But sources close to the goings on at the club indicated that Dynamos had been demanding that Pirates should first make a bank transfer of the money to buy Chinyama before they can apply for the international clearance to Zifa.
However, Chinyama’s handlers argue that Dynamos should issue the clearance then demand proof of payment in the seven to 14 days period as stipulated in the transfer regulations.
Ironically the same Dynamos management is understood to have issued a clearance for goalkeeper Washington Arubi who was transferred well after Chinyama had gone to Pirates.
Arubi could now make his Pretoria University debut tonight when the Tuks take on Golden Arrows away in an Absa Premiership tie.