Ze Maria needs to stop tinkering and guide Gor to their title

The signs are not looking good for three times defending champions Gor Mahia in their battle to win Kenya Premier League (KPL) title for the unprecedented time.

Gor have drawn two consecutive matches against teams they would have easily dismissed before.

After enduring a nervy start to the season under former coach Frank Nuttall where they won four points after five matches and also losing to Bandari in Dstv Cup, K’Ogalo had found a new lease of life after the arrival of Coach Marcelo Ferreira.

Their form picked up and they embarked on a winning run, save for a draw against Ushuru and a loss to Tusker, collecting 28 points out of the 33 on offer. The team which had started enthralling their fans with samba style football now looks clueless and limping at best.

This might be attributed to the club losing their midfield citadel Khalid Aucho and injuries to important squad members like Collins Okoth and Godfrey Walusimbi but the cause for this state lies on the poor decisions by the coach and the club officials.

It started with an underwhelming June transfers where notable activities were the return of Meddie Kagere and the signing of Baron Oketch.

The club knew Aucho was on his way out and they would need a central midfielder to replace him with the club unable to finalize the transfer of Crispine Odula, a player who would have filled the slot. To further kill the midfield, the club released Eric Ochieng.

The club also knows about the injury record of Collins Okoth and therefore should not have banked on him as the only defensive midfielder. An understudy in Ernest Wendo has now been thrashed into the limelight with little success. His interceptions, tackles and passes are at best – rudimentary. He often flies into tackles, offers minimal cover to the backline and never seems to engage in forward passes.

The decision to let Jackson Saleh go out on loan to AFC Leopards while Luke Ochieng remained at the club still baffles me. Ochieng who is not a center back by trade is now forced to slot into the position when a proven player is out on loan.

The coach might argue that his hands were tied on the movements in and out of the club but he has also left a lot to be desired by his recent tactics, formations and team lineups.

If Claudio Ranieri was called ‘Tinkerman’ in England then we have another one on our hands in KPL. Ze Maria often talks of freshening up his squad as the basis of his squad rotation, but why freshen a squad which rarely plays 40 games a season and also has a midseason break to boot?

Haron Shakava was out this weekend with Luke in as part of the coach’s obsession with rotation. Watching the player bombard every ball that comes his way and struggle to defend is painstaking. Against Ushuru he was the bridge that Lamine Diallo used to terrorize Bonface Oluoch. A player of his caliber is not even good enough to be on Gor’s 25-man squad.

The voyage of discovery is over, and the coach must settle on his first eleven and let the Green Army enjoy their pennies worth.

His persistence with the ineffectual George Odhiambo when a better Oketch is warming the bench is bordering on abomination. Also Wendo can’t operate alone in central midfield and he needs Okoth beside him to tidy up his mistakes. Packing the lineup with many attacking midfielders exposes the team to teams who use pace to attack.

Upfront, the coach should have known by now that Kagere and Jacques Tuyisenge cannot operate together both as point men. Tuyisenge is an out-and-out striker who feeds on his predatory instincts and lots of space between him and opposition defense. With Kagere in company, he finds his space limited and this has made him ineffective going by his earlier form. Kagere needs to shift to the wings or just behind Tuyisenge for the partnership to work.

The coach needs to act quickly to change the performance or come under scrutiny from the insatiable K’Ogalo’s legions of fans. At Gor ambition must match expectations, if in doubt, just ask James Siang’a.