Sports

Saintfiet blasts ‘big headed’ players

Coach Tom Saintfiet

YANGA head coach Tom Saintfiet lambasted his players for their poor attitude after they slipped to an embarrassing 3-0 defeat at Mtibwa Sugar on Wednesday.

Yanga conceded after only 11 minutes at the Jamhuri Stadium in Morogoro when unmarked Dickson Daudi headed home following a corner-kick by Malika Ndeule.Striker Hussein Javu scored shortly before the break and sealed a perfect win for Mecky Maxime’s side with a wonder strike in the 86th minute to cap an impressive performance by the home team.

Yanga were completely outmanned and outfought in a bruising encounter that left them with one points from their first two games, five points behind leaders and archrivals Simba in the Premier League. And afterwards an angry Saintieft hit out at his players’ lack of focus. "I am very disappointed. It was a poor performance from us. My players did not show enough commitment,” the outspoken coach told reporters.

“We played against a good team Mtibwa Sugar, they had four chances and took three of them, they scored two world-class goals, but we had our share of chances and missed a penalty,” he added.The Belgian apologized to Yanga fans for the soul-searching defeat that came on the back of his side’s goalless draw against Prisons of Mbeya in their opening match played last Saturday.

“I have to apologise to the fans that came out in force to support us, they didn’t deserve this,” he said.Saintfiet, who led Yanga to the CECAFA Kagame Cup glory July this year, was left confused by his team’s poor start to season.He said: “It’s very painfully, playing well in the Kagame Cup tournament and getting off to worst start in the league. It is questionable; I think some of the players have become complacent and big headed."

And he warned: “We need to shake things up as some players have failed to meet expectations, it is obviously tough when you don’t have people who are committed,” he said.Yanga’s next game is against Ruvu JKT at the National Stadium tomorrow. Saintfiet face a huge task of reorganizing his troops for the game, which could prove another banana skin test for the Jangwani Street side.

JKT Ruvu started their league campaign with a 2-1 win over Ruvu Shooting but crashed to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of defending champions Simba on Wednesday and that could make tomorrow’s encounter against Yanga a mouthwatering one.Saintfiet, who replaced Serbian Kostadin Papic at the helm of the Yanga technical bench a few months ago, is being criticized by a few pundits for preferring defensive approach in most of his games.