FCB Nyasa Big Bullets head coach Kalisto Pasuwa says he will not put his players under pressure when we face Bangwe All Stars at Kamuzu Stadium on Thursday afternoon.
Bullets return to TNM Super League action for the first time since August 11 as the defending champions sit tenth in the standings with 24 points from 16 games.
This is a very unfamiliar position for Pasuwa’s men, who need nothing but a win in our clash with Bangwe as well as the next four fixtures to move up the ladder and reduce the gap against the team at the top of the table.
With four games in hand, Bullets, having played 16 league games this campaign, trail league leaders Silver Strikers with 21 points. The Central Bankers have played 19 games.
Addressing the press on Wednesday, 24 hours before facing Bangwe, Pasuwa said Bullets will take it one game at a time.
“I wouldn’t put too much pressure on the boys. The moment you put more pressure on them, they are struggling. We need to see how best we can manage the game without putting pressure on them and at the end of the day, what we need is a win.
“We will try to get the result, but as coaches we have been trying to psyche up the boys to raise their heads, something which is very new to them but that’s what football is all about, so we need to raise our heads now,” explained the 2023 quadruple-winning coach.
But Pasuwa cautioned his men to anticipate a highly charged Bangwe in the midweek fixture despite the opponents sitting in the relegation zone with only two wins this season, reiterating that no team struggles when playing against Bullets.
“I will come back to us as Bullets, it’s the mindset of saying we are meeting Bangwe, a team that is struggling. No team struggles when playing against us. Even if we can play a social team, they can make us run, they will make you see that they are also here to play against one of the biggest teams in the country. We need to switch on and raise our heads to start picking points.
“Mighty Mukuru Wanderers is one of the bigger teams in Malawi but you can see how they [Bangwe] performed when they met them [in the Airtel Top 8 on Sunday]. If they were playing like this in the other games, they could have been somewhere [up the league table], but it shows the zeal of playing for these bigger teams in the sense of players, hence at times you see us as coaches it’s easier to plan when we are playing the bigger teams than these smaller teams in preparing the team.”
Providing Alick Lungu, Clever Mkungula, Mike Mkwate, Crispin Mapemba and Anthony Mfune’s injury update, our head coach said he will not rush his injured players until they are fully recovered and fit to play.
“If there is one thing that we need to go into and sit down as a team is the rehabilitation part of [the injured players]. That’s where we are missing it. Most of the players come back [to training for] maybe a week and the moment you see him running, you want to quickly push him to play and then the next thing after playing one to two games, he goes back to injury for a year. So, the rehabilitation part of it needs to be worked on for us to have these players fully fit for action.”
