Ndiraya wary of Byo City threat
NGEZI Platinum Stars coach, Tonderai Ndiraya,aya, says his high-flying team have to find a way of dealingling with the league’s lightweights ahead of their Castletle Lager Premiership tie against Bulawayo City at theirr Baobab fortress this Saturday.
The platinum miners are in high spirits followingwing the 2-1 away win over Harare giants Caps Unitedd in their last match.
“All the games are difficult for us. In fact, it’ss actually easier to play the big teams than the smallerer teams obviously because of the mentality which tends to creep into players.
“When we play the so-called small teams we tend to relax and become overconfident and sometimestimes we drop points. If you look at the games we playedayed last year we also dropped points against small teams. ms.
“Of course, we lost some games against the big sides but it’s the small teams that really gave us problemslems and to be quite frank we treat all the matches the same. ame.
“There is some bit of pressure with the big teamseams but we treat all the games with the same mentalityy because we get the same points out of those matches. Iff you win it’s three points, nothing more.
“So what we are focused on as a team is to get maximum points in each and every game that we play,” said Ndiraya.
Bulawayo City, who are in their third year of Premiershipeesp football,ootba, haveave stastartedted tthee cacampaignpag oon tthee wrong footing and are currently 13th in the log standings with 10 points.
Amakhosi have started picking points since the arrival of new coach Amini Soma Phiri in their dressing room.
Ngezi Platinum Stars are top of the table following a superb run of nine wins and two draws.
They are u nbnb e a t e n at home in 31 matches spread over two years.
Despite opening a three-point cushion at the apex of thete table,tabe, thete Mhondoro side’s serious competition in the championshipchampionshi race is from fellow platinum miners, FC Platinum.
Norman Mapeza’sMap men, who are the defending champions, have maintained the pressure since the beginning of theth season and will be hoping for a positive result whenw they face giants Dynamos at Rufaro on SundaSunday.
FC Platinum suffered a setback when they were held to goalless drawd at home by a resurgent Triangle in their last outouting while DeMbare were winning at Bulawayo Chiefs.Chiefs Another interinteresting duel is expected when Mark Harrison’s HarareHa City face off with Joey Antipas’
Chicken Inn at Luveve on Saturday.