After suffering a humiliating 6-2 defeat at the hands of fellow rookies Sankoyo Bush Bucks in a beMOBILE Premier League match at Maun Sports Stadium last Saturday, Letlapeng chairman, Sydney Magagane, said the future of head coach Nelson Olebile is still intact.
Olebile arrived at the club last month to replace Thaloba Nthaga and has only managed a point in six outings. After the game against Bush Bucks, there were rumours that Olebile might be shown the exit door, more especially that he is said to have lost the control of the dressing room.
“We’ve received the technical report from the match and we’ve managed to address some of the issues which were raised. I can assure you that the coach has our (executive committee) full support. I don’t believe in firing and hiring coaches. If the results are not coming, we’ve to get to the root cause than getting rid of the coach. You must also remember that he has inherited this team and he’s doing his best under the circumstances,” said Magagane. The boss added that he has monitored Olebile and he has no doubt that he is the right man for the job.
He also dismissed reports that the former Extension Gunners’ coach has lost control of the dressing room. It is alleged that during their game against Bush Bucks, the players showed him little respect and even wanted to come up with their own line up. “We were shocked by those reports because nothing like that has ever happened. It is a lie which is aimed at destabilising our camp but we’ll not let our detractors make us lose focus. We’ve put the players through counseling sessions and we’re confident that they’ll respond positively when we face BDF XI at Lobatse Sports Stadium,” said Magagane.
The Ramotswa-based side is sitting at the bottom of the Premier League table with four points from 11 games. They face inconsistent BDF XI who on their day can mesmerise their opponents. Olebile has no doubts that his charges would redeem their lost pride.
“We had a bad day against Sankoyo and I have belief that we’ll bounce back when we meet BDF XI. It is not going to be an easy game but people can be assured of an improved display from us. We managed to convey a meeting on Tuesday where we were doing a post-match analysis. We indentified our problems and we’ve worked hard at improving them,” said Olebile.
Despite his side facing some difficult times in their first season of Premier League football, Olebile is confident that very soon things will fall in place. “I never give up easily and will continue pushing for positive results. Eventually things will fall in place,” he said. Just like his boss, Olebile dismissed reports that he has lost control of his dressing room. He pointed out that he has no place for undisciplined players. “I’d rather resign than let players do as they wish. Obviously when you have lost by a heavy margin like we did, people are bound to say lots of things. But we’ll not put our heads down, we’ll continue fighting,” he said. Kick off for this afternoon’s game is 3.45pm.
