Struggling St. Joseph confident of evading the chop

St Joseph’s Youth FC head coach Collins Omondi has said his team is keen to build on a recent run of good form to steer away from the National Super League relegation zone.

Despite the team being two points away from the drop zone, Omondi is confident his charges have what it takes to avoid being axed from the league come the end of the season.

Just like the rest of the clubs in the league, the club has had to make do with the absence of sponsors; a factor Omondi says led them to register dismal results in the first leg of this season’s campaign.

“We were faced with financial problems that severely hampered our preparation for the first leg.

“We made several proposals to potential sponsors, but none of them has materialized,” he told Citizen Digital.

While operating with limited resources, the team has lost only one match in their last six outings, a fete that has seen them pull away from the relegation zone.

Omondi reckons their recent turnaround in fortunes will help the club prevail come when the season culminates.

“At the moment, we are thinking about how far we can move away from danger.

Once we realized that we were languishing in the tail end of the log, we came up with a strategy that could see us climb higher and am glad it worked,” he added.

In recent years, the team has acted as a conveyor belt for young players who want to play in the Kenyan top-tier division.

He says the current financial turmoil facing Kenyan football has condemned once promotion hopefuls into stagnant league also-runs.

“The biggest problem we have is that we have substantial player turnovers after every season. We are not in a position to pay them so once they get an opportunity to go somewhere better we will for sure not stand in their way.

“This reality makes it hard for us to plan in the long term.”

Up next for them is a daunting fixture against eighth-placed Fortune Sacco and a victory will see them jump over Kibera Black Stars should results go their way.

The team is currently placed 17th in the NSL with 19 points two points above 18th placed APS Bomet.