Poor showing fuels finger-pointing in Silver camp
There is unease in Silver Strikers’ camp with stakeholders engaged in finger-pointing after their exit from the Fisd Challenge Cup at Civo Stadium on Saturday.
The Central Bankers were thrashed 4-0 by Blue Eagles in the semi-final match which was marred by violent incidents with about nine minutes to full-time.
Silver supporters committee General Secretary, Henry Madzimayera, said the team had proved to be too big for Coach Abas Makawa, hence his failure to inspire it to success.
“We are questioning his tactics as a coach. Our position as supporters is that the team has lost direction and it is too big for Makawa to manage.
“Silver is a big team which needs a mature and experienced coach. Otherwise, we will continue to lose games if he continues as our coach. We will meet as a supporters committee to suggest the way forward to our executive committee,” Madzimayera said.
He said their biggest concern was that they had missed out on the cup after falling out of TNM Super League title contention.
The club’s former Executive Committee member, Dennis Kachikho, said it was sad that they were failing to deliver despite assembling one of the best squads in the country.
“I would personally attribute the dwindling standards and performance of the club to poor management. I fault this new system of restricting management of the club to only those who work for our sponsor, Reserve Bank of Malawi.
“This is what is slowly killing our team. Some of these administrators lack passion for football and are only there because they were appointed,” Kachikho said.
But Makawa said the team lacks great players capable of winning games.
“The team is not entirely bad. We have had good results in recent games. We only need to beef up the squad and I have submitted names of the players I want at the club.
“If given another contract next season, I will make changes to the defence and the midfield.
We have certain players who are not good enough for their positions,” the coach said, without giving out any names.
But Silver Captain, Young Chimodzi Junior, said pointing fingers at individual players such as goalkeeper Brighton Munthali for the humiliating loss to Eagles was unfair.
Chimodzi instead heaped the blame on the main executive, supporters committee and fellow players for the defeat.
“Silver Strikers is a family. It is not a one-man show. We met Blue Eagles as a team and we lost as a team. We did not plan well and we must admit that we were second best,” he said.
Chimodzi added that officials were also contributing to the team’s dismal performance.
“Some officials are busy with politics that is not helping the club in any way. This has resulted in other quarters taking advantage of the loss to start bringing conflicts by blaming individuals for the loss. If we blame our goalkeeper that he allowed Eagles to score silly goals, where were the other players?
“Did defenders do their job? What about our strikers? Where were the midfielders to help in attacking and defending? I am also feeling the pain as captain for the exit from Fisd Challenge Cup. This was not supposed to happen. But life must go on,” he said.
Silver General Secretary, Innocent Kadam’manja, said the stakeholders’ observations would be forwarded to the executive board for assessment.
“We are a big family and we value the input of all our stakeholders. The board will make decisions aimed at improving the team’s performance,” Kadam’manja said.
The Bankers are stuck on fourth position of the elite league with 44 points from 26 matches, eight points behind leaders Nyasa Big Bullets.
But they have a consolation of the Airtel Top 8 cup which they lifted after beating Karonga United 1-0 in June at Bingu National Stadium.
