Kenya's Kimanzi scoffs at quit calls

By Gilbert Wandera

National coach Francis Kimanzi insists lessons learnt from a disastrous World Cup and Africa Cup of  Nations campaign should be the focus instead of  calls for his resignation.

Kimanzi who spoke when the team arrived from Togo yesterday morning also defended his fielding insisting that he only used the best players available.

Stars lost 1-0 to Namibia in a World Cup qualifier and went down by a similar margin to Togo in a 2013 Africa Cup of  Nations qualifier on Sunday.

“We have learnt some great lessons from this two losses and one of them is the need to do everything possible and win your home matches. It is obvious to us about the difficulty of winning or even collecting a point away,” he said.

Kimanzi also blamed poor officiating during the loss to Togo claiming that the referee was biased in most of  his decisions and does not regret being sent off in the second half.

“The referee appeared to have a set mind and iam glad he decided to send me off instead of  one of  my players otherwise we would have been humiliated on the pitch,” he said.

Regarding his fielding in both matches which has come under heavy criticism the coach said it is not fair to blame individual players without looking at the overall performance of the team.

“I cannot criticize the players that I picked myself. It is normal for player’s form to dip from time to time but overall an individual cannot affect the performance of a team,” he said.

He also sought to point out  some positives in the team insisting that its defensive aspect is complete and just needs a bit of exposure.

“We are still working on the midfield and the striking force but the truth is we need more depth in the latter position. At the moment we don’t have it,” he said.

Kimanzi also dismissed calls for his resignation insisting that it will not help in anyway.

“I understand the disappointment of  local fans but as a technical bench we get disappointed even more when the results we expect don’t come.  As a country we need to look at our league and all other aspects of the sport and ask ourselves whether we have the quality that can help us,”

“We cannot always rebuild but have to get on from on here. We have become a very negative society such that it is not easy for me as a coach to introduce young players in the team because no one will give them a chance to grow,” said the coach.

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Secretary General Lodvick Aduda however challenged Kimanzi to take responsibility for the poor results.

“We did everything he asked us to do and now he must take responsibility for the poor performance,” said Aduda who accompanied the team to Togo.