After Robert Mboya’s grave blunder that gifted KCB a cheap goal, Tusker FC head coach Robert Matano has blasted the goalkeeper and cleared the air on why he started.When Tusker rolled out their team sheet against KCB, Michael Wanjala who was fresh from claiming the club’s Player of Month was handed a starting berth but a late injury meant that Mboya was installed in between the sticks.It was a match to forget as he ceded possession cheaply to Derrick Otanga when he was under no pressure to hand KCB the second goal which left Tusker with a mountain to climb in the game.FULL TIME IN THIKA.What a fight from the boys. We take a point away from home. pic.twitter.com/8jPatOTFfQ— Tusker FC (@tusker_fc) July 11, 2021 Matano confirmed that Wanjala suffered an injury before the game and lambasted Mboya for his costly mistake in the build-up to Otanga’s goal but credited the impact of Humphrey Mieno and Jackson Macharia.“Wanjala got an injury and Mboya is a senior player, I told him that those are jokes. Such kind of mistakes kill the spirit of the team but we planned to fight until the last minute,”“We always look at who we are playing against, we know what they will do and how we will respond. I knew Machaira and Mieno being senior players can still change the game and they did,” said Matano.Macharia and Mieno were both directly involved in both goals with the former Thika United midfielder setting up Mieno who returned back the favour by feeding Macharia with a neat long ball.Matano also lauded the character in his side after fighting from two goals down in the final 20 minutes of the game to maintain their spot at the summit of the league. ⚽| 84′ Goal!Jackson Macharia nets the equalizing goal.@KCBFootball 2️⃣-2️⃣ @tusker_fc #KCBTUS#Believe #LionHearted 🦁— KCB Football Club 😷 (@KCBFootball) July 11, 2021 “We have to be strong mentally, the players have to fight all the time when we play the teams who are close to us, if you are strong mentally then physically you’ll be okay,”“I’m not good at records but if we have never lost a match on Sunday, then we are a lucky side but all in all we are thankful at least the referee was fair match,” added Matano.Zedekiah Zico Otieno failed to show up for the post-match interview and instead sent his assistant Godfrey Oduor who picked positives from the goal but claimed Macharia’s goal was offside.“We lost two points, we thank God for getting the point because this is a match that was supposed to have a goal and we witnessed just that we think the second goal had an offside but we will review the footage,”“We feel that the goalkeeper should have done better (Mieno’s goal) but we will go back into the training goal but we are still in contention for the league and we are now concentrating on our next match against Wazito,” noted Oduor.
