You are punishing Gor Mahia, fuming Kerr rips into KPL

The heat of congested Kenyan Premier League fixtures for champions Gor Mahia is taking a toll on the glamour club with their visibly infuriated coach Dylan Kerr, usually a calm, collected and assured head launching an unusual avalanche of attack on the league management body over what he termed as “punitive scheduling”.

That the toll is having an effect on his boys was clear on Wednesday as Kerr’s boys could only settle for a barren draw against Tusker FC, after fielding a largely second-string team, as they finally surrendered what had been a 100 percent winning record in their first three matches.

And in a post-match interview, Scot  Kerr minced no words in blaming league organisers, the KPL Limited, for what he termed as “unreasonable suffocation” of his players.

Having played a hard-fighting Kariobangi Sharks on Sunday, winning 2-1 only two days after arriving from Equatorial Guinea for continental assignment against Leones Vegetarianos, Kerr requested KPL to adjust their fixtures considering their next week’s date with Tunisian giant’s Esperance, but these pleas fell on deaf ears, as the energy-sapping explosive tie against Tusker, played under scorching conditions, went on. This match precedes another tie against Bandari set for Saturday, before Wednesday’s crunch tie against Esperance’s  in the Caf-Champions League first round first leg in Machakos.

Naturally, in light of such important continental duties, leagues would revise their fixtures to aid their representative’s cause in the international assignments, but as Kerr puts it, it seems, in Kenya, professionalism is thrown out of the window and sense never prevails, at all!

Thus, Kerr conceded despite his wish to give every player a chance, the massive rotation he is executing in every match is out of the unforgiving tight schedule.

“No doubt about that, we should have hammered Tusker, that’s why the one point we got against them is a minus to me. We had to rest most of the regular starters knowing where we have come from and where we are headed.

“No professional coach would just change a winning team anyhow, but what do you do when your players fatigued? We have tried to talk to KPL but we appear to be making no sense to them, so we have to soldier on,” a frustrated Kerr said.

It was too late for Gor to make amends in the second half against Tusker, despite bringing on experienced goal-poacher Meddie Kagere and Kelvin Omondi, and Tusker almost sunk the table-toppers at the death.

Kerr noted inexperience was telling in his team, slaming Eric Loukwam who was making his league debut for missing two clear-cut chances.

“This is where you imagine it should have been better, how does he (Loukwam) miss yards from the goal with so little challenge? He is young but sometimes you wonder why they cannot do it with the ease they show in training,” Kerr said.

The two points lost in Tusker’s clash leaves the Briton scratching his head over how to tackle Bandari.

“Of course I have to plan for Bandari with Esperance in mind. We may have to do some changes again it we have to win.

“Expectations are high in both competitions (KPL and Champions League), and we have to fight for the best we can in every match,” added the coach.

Meanwhile, Tusker coach Sam Timbe is concerned with his defence, saying cheap mistakes almost cost them the match.

Tusker, who have won only one of their four matches of the current season, have also struggled to score goals, a problem the Ugandan says must be fixed.

They have only two goals so far, from the three draws and a defeat, sitting ninth on the log.

“We had some problem in how we were building up from our defece unit, which limited our chances although we created several. Had we conceded when they (Gor) came close to, it would have been out of simple mistakes that we cannot afford to continue doing,” told Timbe.