The coach is impressed, supporters are dismayed!

Dingilizwe Ntuli, Sports Editor
HIGHLANDERS’ head coach Mandla Mpofu says he was impressed by the way his team played in their 1-0 defeat by Manica Diamonds in a Castle Lager Premier Soccer League match at Sakubva Stadium in Mutare on Sunday.

This is a sentiment Mpofu has consistently parroted from their opening day loss to Black Rhinos and in their goalless stalemate against Ngezi Platinum Stars on match day two.

That Bosso have managed to collect just one point from a possible nine seems only to impress Mpofu.

It’s doubtful that the legions of Bosso fans are impressed by the results. While Mpofu is happy with the onfield performances, the supporters are more interested in winning.

Fans want to be associated with a winning team and while Mpofu may be impressed, the supporters are disgusted by the results.

The coach again promised that they will soon start scoring, but on the evidence of their past three performances, Mpofu needs to pray hard because current form doesn’t suggest who is capable of scoring in the entire team.

So blunt is the current strike force that they have become renowned for blazing their efforts off target.

On paper Bosso appear to have the most balanced squad, with a good mixture of youths and veterans, but sent onto the pitch they seem more comfortable firing blanks.

In their opening three games in the PSL, they have fired blanks, but instead of the technical staff being worried, they seem rather impressed and believe they’ll start winning soon.

The question is when is soon? Despite reaching the quarter-finals of the Chibuku Super Cup, a precursor of the PSL, the team was struggling for goals and it seems they are building on that goal drought in the league.

It should worry, and not impress, the coaches that they have conceded three goals and scored none in three games.

Their current log stats are worrisome to both their supporters and sympathisers and it’s about time the coaches become honest with themselves that things are not going according to plan.

They must ask themselves if they have the right personnel, and if they believe they do, then what is lacking.

It certainly can’t be a matter of the team’s failure to score, and the coaches must evaluate their tactics and see if maybe they are not the cause of the goal drought.

Just maybe they keep redeploying tactics that are clearly not working. If Plan A doesn’t work, try something else,  but it seems as though the Bosso technical team keeps trying to force Plan A.

Tactics that enable the team to dominate possession, but fail to yield positive results, must be discarded for more purposeful play.

The Highlanders board and executive committee was last week taken on a three-day strategic planning retreat by their principal sponsors Sakunda Holdings to craft plans that will ensure the club becomes self-sustainable.

They were provided with renowned consultants in various fields of business who emphasised that failure should never be viewed as a holy and acceptable condition.

Perhaps this hadn’t been imparted to Mpofu for him to pat a woeful result with gleeful satisfaction.

He should find a way of avoiding criticising his players in public without appearing to condon mediocre performances.

The Bosso supporters are hurting following Sunday’s loss and the coach should have chosen his words carefully.

What probably hurts the Bosso fans more is that while the team is struggling for goals and wins, other teams are grinding out good results with bad performances.

The technical staff must work harder to turn Bosso into a mean machine that no team wants to play against.

Lately the players’ body language on the pitch has been nothing, but a bundle of nerves.

They seem to enjoy training more than competitive games.

At the moment, just about every other team can’t wait to play against Highlanders because their play is predictable and they know that Bosso WILL not score.

Supporters are less interested in what the coach says and just want to see their team winning and scoring.

Hopefully the resolutions of the Victoria Falls retreat will soon cascade to the technical department so that the coach doesn’t take centre stage with continued promises of wins that never come.

The players must do the talking on the field and not the coach in post match interviews.