To be the best, Leopards must sign top players
What you need to know:
- If Ingwe gets the right officials and good recruitment, they can challenge for titles.
- Since returning to the top flight soccer, Ingwe have not been in good form as they were in 2013 season when they lifted the GOtv Shield after beating poor Gor Mahia in the finals.
- We seriously need to look for money to invest in quality players who can beat Gor Mahia as a matter of routine.
The right players will enable our coach to achieve our revised goal of finishing the league in a respectable position after being knocked out of the SportPesa Shield tournament.
I feel the Rwandan coach Andre Cassa Mbungo has a valid reason when he hints that a thin squad could have been the reason for our previous inconsistencies.
This is why the coach should be given more players to bolster his squad before the mid-season window closes today.
In a post-match interview after beating Chemelil Sugar 2-0 in the league at Machakos, Mbungo said the situation regarding player depth at Leopards is bad.
While other teams have enough players to rotate, Ingwe had been depending on only 16 players before bringing in David “Cheche” Ochieng, Shami Mwinyi, Soter Kayumba and Ivan Ssekaza who are still learning the new coach’s philosophy.
Leopards were in the first leg of the campaign hit by a series of injuries in all departments.
We had to play without Said Tsuma, Moses Mburu, Dennis Sikhayi, Jeffary Odeny and Eugene Mukangula and it told as the great Ingwe club dropped to the red zone — what a shame!
With every returning player, there’s always one that’s leaving and that has posed a great challenge to Mbungo.
Why are we not replacing the struggling players who are not playing as much as we think they should.
We have some players who haven’t been given any opportunity simply because they are not good enough to convince the coach. Some are aren’t taking practice seriously enough.
Who recruited the players who can’t perform and why do they earn salaries? Even how can they justify their input?
We need players who can get more playing time, get the most out of what the sport has to offer, keep training hard.
Those still struggling should have their positions taken away immediately for Ingwe to return to where we belong.
Our players must be ready to implement what the coach recommends, and employ the plan that the coach outlines for them to get more playing time. The newly recruited players must also try to put in extra work outside of practice to turn those weakness into strengths and start biting.
This habit of officials imposing players on the coaches to get a cut from the recruitment fees must stop. We have seen players who signed for Sh500,000 and more and not match that price tag with pitch performance.
We have in recent years ended up with low-calibre players who can’t perform, as some of them are brought in by brokers.
Players trials are done to hoodwink people as the club eventually signs those who are not at trials.
In the end, the team suffers as officials make money but the club ends up with a weak squad that the technical bench struggles to transform into a winning outfit
If Ingwe gets the right officials and good recruitment, they can challenge for titles.
Since returning to the top flight soccer, Ingwe have not been in good form as they were in 2013 season when they lifted the GOtv Shield after beating poor Gor Mahia in the finals.
We seriously need to look for money to invest in quality players who can beat Gor Mahia as a matter of routine.
