BY HENRY MHARA DYNAMOS coach Tonderai Ndiraya says he will depend on the deadly combination of to push his team towards the Premier Soccer League championship this season.
The dynamic duo has propelled Dynamos to the summit of the log standings. Paga is the club’s leading goal scorer with five goals in the nine games that he has played since joining from Ghana at the start of the season.
Young prodigy Antonio has provided most of the assists, five in total. The former Prince Edward High School student has also weighed in with three of the 14 goals that the team has scored so far in the campaign.
Ahead of DeMbare’s trip to WhaWha this afternoon, Ndiraya heaped praise on Paga, saying he will not be ashamed to put his trust on the West African and his partner in crime, Antonio to propel the team to their first league title since 2015.
“He (Paga) has done well so far,” Ndiraya said.
Paga has started many of our matches and his goal ratio has been good. We have demanded consistency in terms of scoring from him and hopefully he can give us that. So far, I am very satisfied because if you bring in someone from outside the country and he can score the way he has been doing its good for the team. Its not just him (who has been doing well), young Bill Antonio has also been doing well. He has been involved in most of the goals that we have scored. They have formed a really deadly partnership and they are enjoying their football at the moment and hopefully they can be consistent. If they can continue with the form that they have produced in the past 12 games, then we will be in a very good space.”
Ndiraya has also challenged his other strikers to step up.
“We want them to complement what Paga has been doing, so hopefully they can do that and help the team to score more goals. We have done reasonably well in terms of defending, but I feel we haven’t done enough in terms of scoring. We have created so many chances and the issue of scoring has been a problem. The good thing is we are getting maximum points. Of course, we would want to win by bigger margins, but in the end it’s the points that are important.”
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Dynamos travel to Ascot Stadium without their two recognised left-sided fullbacks Tinotenda Muringai and Brendon Mpofu.
But this is not the only problem that Ndiraya is facing ahead of the match against the relegation strugglers.
“It has been difficult for us to motivate the guys to keep doing what they have been doing in the past games because when the team consistently get good results it becomes difficult for coaches to psychologically prepare the team because of complacency,” Ndiraya said.
“We have been working hard to make sure that the players keep their eyes on the ball. This is a race, a marathon and so many things will happen along the way so it’s a matter of taking advantage of the moment. We are in a very good space at the moment, but things can change anytime especially if you don’t concentrate and put all your focus on what you are doing. That has been a big challenge, but we have seen some positives in terms of change in mentality towards the WhaWha game.”
- Follow Henry onTwitter @henrymhara
