By Bhora Afrika
IT was another bad day in office for Simba Bhora Coach Tonderai Ndiraya after a shock one nil loss to bottom placed Cranborne Bullets on Friday.
It was his second loss on the trot and fourth of the season after eight matches.
Simba Bhora last week handed fellow new entrants Greenfuel its only win of the topflight season so far. The match ended 1-0 at National Sports Stadium in Harare
Forward Slyvastar Munhira’s only goal was enough to hand Nesbert Saruchera his first victory of the campaign.
A disappointed Ndiraya layed into his players.
“[I am] very disappointed indeed. We were playing at home. When you are playing at home you want to take advantage of your home and get maximum points.
“We didn’t do that in the past two games. We are conceding early in the matches. I think it’s an issue of concentration. We then fail to show character and come back into the game to try and get a result.”
Ndiraya bemoaned injuries in his team and believes his strikers are blunt.
“It’s been very difficult for us, especially in the final third, to create chances. Even when we do create those few chances, we have not really been sharp in that department. We are missing quite a number of offensive players who are out due to injuries,” he added.
“We have had to play some youngsters today and it was a bit too much for them. We have been conceding carelessly if you ask me.
The former Dynamos head coach said he is “extremely disappointed” with the way his team is conceding goals lately and seem to be blaming his defenders.
“We did that when we played Gree Fuel, did that again today. A needless mistake from Keith Murera but even though, we had three defenders who were behind him who could not defend. They were ball watching.
“[I am] extremely disappointed by the way we have conceded goals if you really consider the experience that we have in the team, especially at the back.
“For teams to come and start getting points against us, it’s really disappointing. I think we have been donating points at will in the past three games.
“Teams that we thought perhaps we could get points [from], we have dropped points. It started when we played Sheasham.
“I thought we had finished the job only to concede in the 92nd minute. We played Green Fuel, [and we] conceded a free kick, a silly one. And ofcourse again today.
“We find ourselves in this situation, we have to take ourselves out of this situation. It’s tough, this is the premier [soccer] league. There is no small team in the premier league.
“I think we have got to change the whole of our mentality. There is no easy game in the premier league.
“I think we really put up a good show against big teams. Though in some instances we lost, but I thought we really played well. Then when we played the so called small teams, we are really found wanting. That’s what is really disappointing.
“Congratulations to Cranborne Bullets, they collected their first set of three points. Disappointing from our end.
“We tried. The boys tried to play. Possession yes we were okay, but possession without penetration is really nothing. We have not really been very good in the offensive third.
“We are not really creating chances to score and once you do that, it becomes very difficult for you as a team. Those are the areas that we need to go and look at and live to fight another day.”
Saruchera who was happy with his first victory of the season said: “I am happy. We have managed to collect three [points] today and we have been working so hard. Like I said before, some of those games we were losing, we were playing beautiful football.
“We always play very well but lose sometimes but we keep on psyching the guys so that we collect more points in our next games.
“(The win) It’s very important. It’s our first win of the season. We lost about four games so they (players) are happy.
“We are working hard at training to make sure that we score more (goals) than one.”