HEARTBREAK FOR MUSKWE
ZIMBABWE will have to wait a bit longer to have a third footballer in the English Premiership.
Admiral Muskwe’s bid to join his Warriors teammates - Marvelous Nakamba and Jordan Zemura - in the world’s most glamourous topflight football league, next season, has come short.
Muskwe’s Luton Town crashed out at the semi-final hurdle of the Championship play-offs after a bitter 0-1 defeat at the hands of Huddersfield on Monday night.
The two teams had drawn 1-1 in the first leg in Luton.
This means Huddersfield will now face either Nottingham Forest or Sheffield United in the final, dubbed the richest one-off match in world football.
The winner doesn’t only get the guarantee of a place in the English Premiership but about more than US$200 million in earnings.
Muskwe was not part of the squad at Huddersfield where the visitors dominated the first half and should have scored only for Harry Cornick to shoot straight at Terriers goalkeeper Lee Nicholls from just six yards out.
“I’m really disappointed but that’s overshadowed by the pride I have for the club and how we have gone about it. We were outstanding tonight,” Huddersfield coach, Nathan Jones, told BBC Sport.
“We were the better team, we had the better chances, more corners, we just couldn’t find the opening.
“Tactically, we were superb, we were aggressive, we pressed - people say they’re the best tactical side in the league, they’re not.
“It’s quite easy to sit in and be pragmatic, we don’t. We go after everyone and how we went about our work, I am so proud of our group - it’s a magnificent group.” Muskwe’s strike partner, Cameron Jerome, said he was proud of the Hatters despite the disappointing defeat.
“It is never nice to lose a game, especially with what’s at stake,” he told BBC Three Counties Radio.
“We truly believe it was a winnable tie, there wasn’t anything in both legs as you could see. Probably off the balance of it, we had the better chances to win the tie but football is about taking those chances and unfortunately we weren’t able to do that.
“The lads are bitterly disappointed as you can imagine. To lose so late in the game, it is a body blow but immensely proud of all the boys, the efforts everyone has given this season and the progress the club has made.”
Following a remarkable sixth place finish in the Sky Bet Championship, their highest league finish in 30 years, Jerome focused on the highs from the 2021/22 season, reflecting:
“It might sound a little bit too positive but you have to take some positives out of this season and the positives are this football club got to where it has got to because of all the hard work it does.
“The people associated with the football club, who run the football club, the people who are in charge of everything, there are really good human beings inside the football club and I can’t reiterate that anymore.”