FCB Nyasa Big Bullets head coach Kalisto Pasuwa says he is working very hard for the TNM Super League defending champions to start collecting maximum points.
The Zimbabwean disclosed this ahead of our midweek encounter against FOMO FC at Kamuzu Stadium on Wednesday afternoon.
Bullets face the Mulanje-based rookies 72 hours after being held to a 1-1 stalemate by Civil Service United at home on Sunday when we registered our eighth draw this campaign.
“We have been working with our finishing part to improve where we are failing,” he told club media on Tuesday.
“But again, the last game we played, we didn’t do enough in terms of attacking, in terms of how we keep possession and if I can say maybe we had three or four guys who played above par, I would say better, but to some of the guys, they didn’t do as expected.
“Remember, we were a team that last scored five goals [against Bangwe All Stars in the FDH Bank Cup], and then next thing, we went flat, and or even the chances, we were not getting them. I think there is also a psychological part of it where we need to work with these boys. This affects them. As you can see, [when] they play, they end up fighting for a draw and this is not good enough.
“A good example is the recent game against Civil. After equalizing, I thought maybe we would tempo up our game but we went down and we were flat again. That’s one thing that we are working on and like I said, if we keep on putting pressure on the boys, we will end up overloading them mentally and they will collapse. We need to be doing it gradually and I think we will get there.”
Pasuwa went on to reiterate that last year’s success, in which Bullets won every trophy in Malawi, woke up the rest of the teams, who are now coming hard on the defending champions with a point to prove.
“Bullets, as you can see how we are faring this year, what we did last year made everyone wake up and if you can see every team that we are playing against, they are putting everything and we also need to tempo up our game for us to go an extra mile, for us to be winning these games, and it’s all about [taking] the chances that you get when playing these other teams.
“The moment you get a chance, if you don’t score, then at the end of it, you will be punished. You saw against Civil, a good example, we had our chance and they got their chance, they punished us and that’s when we responded and after getting the equalizing goal, we dropped again which is one thing that we are trying as much as we can to be dealing with but we need to do it now. Remember, more games are coming every day.”
On whether the players are failing to handle the pressure of winning every trophy last year, the Bullets head coach said:
“I would say yes and on the other part, no. Remember, we had a few senior players who were part of the success last season and we retired them at the start of this new campaign and now as you can see, this is a new generation which we promoted and most of them are young players.
“This is the time that we need leaders to step up when things are down so that they push the youngsters up to return to our winning ways.”
The People’s Team will be going into Wednesday’s tie 13 points behind league leaders, Silver Strikers, having won only three games, registering eight draws and one defeat.
After the midweek fixture, Bullets will proceed to the Northern Region where we will take on Karonga United on Sunday.
