Matlama boss plays down favourites tag

MASERU – Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only concerned with getting better.

Molebatsi was speaking on Tuesday after ‘Tse Putsoa’ demolished Naughty Boys 6-0 to stay top of the Vodacom Premiership and the question that was put to him was if Bantu’s surprise defeat to

Lijabatho on the same day already makes the champions title favourites.

Molebatsi said it is not just Bantu they are competing with but there is also the Lesotho Correctional Service (LCS) and Lioli to think about.

Molebatsi may play down Matlama’s favourites tag but the champions are already five points ahead of Bantu who just can’t seem to find any consistency and three ahead of LCS.

It is understandable why Matlama fans have been walking around with big smiles on their faces because if their opponents keep slipping up, the champions may just coast to another title.
However, May is far away and anything can still happen.

“When we first won our first (league) game against Linare that’s when the picture became clear, it was very important to us because there are teams that just beat you. Linare beat us twice last season. We are not competing with Bantu only and it is still early, we want to win all our games,” he said.

“We made the boys realise Naughty Boys had (played and lost) three games, but the teams that beat them weren’t doing it for us to just come and walkover. It’s just mental strength. We said: how do we score? We have played a lot of games that we could have won by a big margin but the problem was scoring,” Molebatsi said.

The champions had five different goals scorers against Naughty Boys but none of their strikers got on the score-sheet, in fact, both Thabiso Mari and Lazola Jokojokwane, the players that were expected to lead Matlama’s line this season, are yet to find the back of the net for the club.

Molebatsi said that does not bother him because Matlama have created a system where everyone has a responsibility to score, not just the attackers.

“We believe everyone should score; we don’t want to put (the strikers) under pressure. They are coming, their time is coming,” Molebatsi said.

“We are removing the pressure that strikers should score, defenders should defend and keepers should stop goals. Everyone should work coherently with others.”

Tlalane Phahla