DYNAMOS coach Lloyd Mutasa took the decision to drop some of his senior players at the weekend after convincing himself that the players were sabotaging him.
BY TAWANDA TAFIRENYIKA
The under-fire mentor has moved to try and save his own skin by dropping the senior players and will go further and strip Stephen Alimenda of the captaincy.
The future of some senior players has been thrown into uncertainty, as long as Mutasa is in charge.
With Alimenda’s name missing from the team list, Ocean Mushure took the captaincy responsibilities in their drawn Castle Lager Premier Soccer League match against Bulawayo City at Rufaro Stadium on Sunday.
Dynamos have played five draws in the last six matches, where they lost one to Border Strikers and have plummeted to sixth on the league table.
Goalkeeper Tatenda Mukuruva, striker Rodreck Mutuma and midfielders Denver Mukamba and Alimenda were axed from the Sunday match, with the coach opting to field younger players. Insiders suggest that some senior players want Mutasa and his assistant Murape Murape sacked and were working with some members of the executive to sabotage the coaches.
The sources also said yesterday the level of indiscipline had reached alarming levels with most of the players not committing themselves to the Dynamos cause and often going out for drinking sprees.
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It is said some come to training drunk and were not performing at training, which has seen the coaches losing faith in them.
“Of major concern is the senior players’ attitudes. They seem not to care and are comfortable with the way the team is dropping points,” said the source. The problem is they have nothing to lose, if results don’t come it’s the coaches that are sacked. It seems these players have been working together with some of the executive members to sabotage the current technical set-up. It’s unfortunate that these players are the ones that should be driving the club’s campaign.”
It is alleged that the executive has not done anything to cultivate results.
“The working conditions changed since the departure of (Paulo Jorge) Silva. The team has never camped since then, but when Silva was in charge they were camping ahead of every match. So you see this indiscipline continues to creep into the team. Ideally the team should camp before the match. If you look at all the signings, they were all free agents. The executive does not want to part with any money towards the signing of players. Mutasa even went to the extent of using his own money to bring one of the players. There is virtually no support from the executive.”
Mutasa and Murape will attempt to get results from the emerging players’ hunger to succeed.
With log leaders FC Platinum, second-placed Caps United and Highlanders all failing to win at the weekend, Dynamos could have closed the gap with a win on Sunday.
Dynamos president Keni Mubaiwa scoffed at the sabotage claims yesterday, but admitted that the team was no longer going into camp ahead of matches.
He said the club could no longer afford to go into camp unlike during Silva’s tenure.
“We used to camp when the team was under Silva. That time we had money, but now we no longer have money. But what we want as the executive are results. We want the team to win the championship and that is still possible,” Mubaiwa said.
