Gunners face familiar problem
Boitumelo Khutsafalo | Saturday November 13, 2021 06:00
His frustration comes in the wake of his side’s 3-0 loss to Gaborone United (GU) on Wednesday afternoon at the National Stadium. Mpho Kgaswane and Thatayaone Kgamanyane’s first-half brace handed Gunners a third successive loss since the season started a fortnight ago. The disgruntled fan’s gripe is not that he is worried that his side may one day regret the poor start and relegate. His view is that Gunners always eventually dodge the dangerous bullet so, his frustrations emanates from the fact that they always miss out on an opportunity to finish in a respectable position because of a bad start to the season.
Gunners have faced the same problem, which has become common almost every season. They have always put themselves in a precarious situation but have also become masters of escape.
This time they started their campaign with a 2-0 loss to Township Rollers. Next on the line were Orapa United who also handed the Peleng giants a similar defeat before high riding GU smashed three against them. Gunners are currently rooted at the bottom of the log standings and in just three matches, they have conceded seven goals and scored none. Some have attributed their current dry spell to the unfavourable fixtures, which have seen them play the current top three sides on the log. GU sit at the top with nine points followed by Rollers with the same number of points above Orapa United with six points. Gunners had a very short pre-season compared to other sides. After the 3-0 loss to GU on Wednesday, coach Molefe Motlhala admitted to ‘being in a pre-season’ in the middle of the season. “We are doing pre-season in the league and it will be very difficult for us. It is very unfortunate that we are doing pre-season against well-trained teams and to be honest, big teams. I still believe that had the fixtures been fair to us, we would be talking a different language,” Motlhala said. While other sides started pre-season much earlier, Gunners returned to training two weeks before the commencement of the season.
They have previously blamed the initial expulsion from the Premier League by the First Instance Body (FIB). Gunners were among the four other clubs who were adjudged to have failed to meet the club licensing requirements before they were pardoned. They are currently hoping that the Orange FA Cup break this weekend will allow them to look back at their losses and fix their mistakes. With experienced players like Thato Bolweleng, Desire Bafana and Dirang Moloi reaching the much-needed fitness, Gunners faithful are hopeful that they can start collecting points in the next league fixtures.
Meanwhile, Notwane are also facing a similar situation having lost their first two matches against Orapa United and Police XI. They have conceded six goals in just two matches. Like Gunners, Notwane were initially denied a license to participate in Premier League activities before they were reinstated after appeal.