Home Expert view Expert View : NAPSA fixing the wrong problem

Expert View : NAPSA fixing the wrong problem

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The Board and Management of Napsa Stars FC yesterday, Tuesday, June 19th announced their decision to relieve head coach Mr Elijah Chikwanda and his two assistants Chabby Chabala and Sipho Mumbi of their duties with immediate effect following a string of poor results.

This is the second technical bench NAPSA Stars are firing this season after showing the door to Linos Makwaza, Dabwitso Nkhoma and Harry Milanzi.

“We have looked at all the options and we resolved that it was important to enhance the coaching bench to improve the team performance,” Part of the statement by NAPSA Board secretary Cephas Sinyangwe read.

By this time last season team was fighting for the league and had booked a spot in the Barclays cup but fast forward today they lie 18th on the log with only 10 points from 18 games played this far.

BUT WHAT HAS GONE WRONG, WHAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM?

The decline started last season when they fired Tenant Chilumba instead of dealing with the main issue after going six games without a victory between July 6th and September 4th.

Tenant had managed to organise a good young squad that was very ambitious but most of those players were making their first full season of the highly competitive and demanding MTN/FAZ Super League. He managed to take the team to the top of the log for the majority of the first half of the season but started crumbling in the second half.

Chilumba managed to assemble a good first eleven and not necessarily a good team and what mostly happens when you only have a few good and dependable players  is that other teams will easily learn your strength as a team and begin to plan well for you. It was no secret that Yourember Banda, Collins Sikombe, Chitiya Mususu and Austin Banda were at the core of the NAPSA stars set up hence once they have a bad game NAPSA will struggle. Players also get tired and run out of steam then what?

What NAPSA needed to do was to re-inforce the squad and get more players of the Yourember Banda kind of quality if they were serious about winning league. Instead they picked the easy way out, Firing Chilumba.

Youremember Banda celebrating after scoring for NAPSA Stars last season

Linos Makwaza his assistant was picked to replace him , Well first and foremost he was still at NAPSA Stars when Chilumba was struggling hence the reason for this was mind blowing otherwise.

But nevertheless he and the other two assistants in Harry Milanzi and Dabwitso Nkhoma did not do a bad job as they concluded the season with 6 wins, 3 losses and two draws from 10 games.

After a poor start to this season he was also shown the door and in came Elijah Chikwanda who yesterday was also shown the door.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION

The hardest part in solving a problem is indentifying the problem and one such problem is the quality of players. They let go of their best players and expect the team to win the league? .

Yourember Banda, Chitiya Mususu and Collins Sikombe scored 21 goals amongst themselves which is nearly half of the total goals scored by the pensioners (43) but yet none of them was retained by the club. They needed to fight for their players tooth and nail to keep them at the club if their ambitions stood any chance of becoming reality.

With the players they had last season they still needed to re-inforce to fight for a top four place but instead went on to lose their key players (over five) and replaced them with those of lesser quality.

One of the players who left the Club last transfer window( name withheld) told the Zamfoot crew that NAPSA did not know how to keep players before the exodus and went on to say be alert and see how many players will leave the club this transfer wondow, true to his words over seven players left of which six were starters.

NAPSA Stars need to put their house in order, stick to one coach and re-inforce the squad then and only then will they see results otherwise they risk being relegated if they are not careful.

A coach can only deliver with the right set of players at his disposal if not they finish all the coaches in Zambia and still end up being relegated.

3 Comments

  1. THE GAME BETWEEN NKANA AND LUSAKA DYNAMOS
    WILL BE PLAYED AT OLD BUCHI STADIUM BECAUSE
    NKANA STADIUM WILL BE USED FOR THE MASS FUNERAL
    OF THE JERABOS WHO DIED AT THE BLACK MOUNTAIN.

  2. It is a general trend by many Zambian football teams. They are either using coaches or players as scapegoats for their poor managerial skills and greediness.This is exactly what is happening at both Napsa and Nchanga Rangers.Even if they had to bring Mourinho or Wenger at Napsa, the results will never change owing to the poor quality of players they have.The management must instead resign on moral grounds for poor decision making. My word to the coaches that may be contemplating coaching Napsa or Nchanga Rangers is that they need to think twice before taking up these jobs or else their CVs will be tainted with the mess at these two clubs.

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