CHICKEN Inn coach Joey Antipas (pictured) has said that the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League race has become a straight fight between platinum miners FC Platinum and Ngezi Platinum Stars, although his team will keep fighting hoping for slip ups at the top.
BY FORTUNE MBELE
The 2015 champions can close the gap on the log-leaders when they clash with second-placed FC Platinum at Luveve stadium tomorrow.
In the same fixture last year FC Platinum, who went on to win the league title, beat Chicken In 1-0 but a lot has changed since then, with the home side having a new technical team led by Joey Antipas.
Chicken Inn can cut the gap between themselves and FC Platinum to five points if they manage to win tomorrow, but by the time they play their match they might be 14 points behind Ngezi who play Harare City this afternoon.
“It looks like it’s a two-horse race with the platinum teams doing well, they are running away. We are just trying to become a pressure group, it’s a long season ahead and you never know what can happen. We need to be on our toes and keep working hard,” Antipas said.
He predicted a tough match against the slick passing FC Platinum but said they will come up with a plan to stop the champions.
“It will be a humdinger against FC Platinum, a team that is on the roll, we just have to get ourselves well-prepared for them. They are a very good ball-playing team. We take stock of our players and see how we can plan for that game. The players need to rest as they are playing three games in one week. There is nothing we can do, we cannot tell the PSL that we cannot play; it’s taxing for the players but we just have to go into the game and fight.
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“FC Platinum who are on 32 points with 10 wins, two draws and just one defeat in 13 games also beat Nichrut 1-0 at home on Thursday and Mapeza reckons the games are getting tougher.
“All the games are becoming difficult but the motto is we have to keep working hard. We all want to win our games but along the way there are some games in which we are going to drop points so we have to be prepared for that. As a coach I will be ready for that. Each and every club is in the league to compete,” Mapeza said after beating Nichrut.
FC Platinum will be looking at getting inspiration from Rodwell Chinyengetere who won last season’s top individual prize.
He was in top form when they outclassed Dynamos in Harare last week.
