Otieno delighted with ‘big’ step taken by Silibwet Leons

After seeing his side enter match day six and exit with the first three points of the season, Silibwet Leons coach Mark Otieno Asa has heralded his players for what he terms as a big step in their development this term.

Silibwet approached the match on a back of a series of poor performances that had the Bomet-based club suffer flustered defeats to Naivas FC, Kibera Black Stars and Mara Sugar before staging draws against Kisumu All Stars and Nairobi United performances that had the club rooted second bottom of the log.

Goals from Derrick Kipkoech and Jimmy Owili saw the club take a lead against Dimba Patriots and despite seeing it reduced the young Leons managed to see out the reminder of the game to get the victory that takes the club one place up the standings.

And Otieno who joined the club at the start of the season was thrilled that his charges managed to record first win of the campaign and get the season underway.

In an exclusive interview with Mozzart Sport, the gaffer was left impressed by the determination and courage showcased by the team noting that they had started playing to the script after a few failed attempts.

“I was really happy to get my maiden win at this club. I really like the determination the players had and that they played as a team implementing what we had done earlier in the training ground. It was incredible for all of us as it maps what we intend to do as a club going forward. It was a big, big step for us to play like we did and collect all points,” he said.

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Asa hailed praise on his defense line for putting their bodies up for the team and managed to restrict the marauding Dimba Patriots strikers for the better part of the game.

With the initial three points in the bag, the youthful expert has eyes fixed on the next game against Kajiado FC where he is bullish of recording a heavy to build on the previous week win and help create a winning mentality among his young team.

“We are next hosting Kajiado and I term the match as a must win because it is going to help create that winning mentality in the squad. With young players you have to keep on getting the results coming and it will motivate a lot of them to even fight more,” he added.

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However, he has called his strikers to task as the team has being struggling firing between the sticks which he admits makes it an uphill task to win matches without goals from your end.

“We need goals to win matches and that’s an area of concern that as a coach I am looking at in the training. If my strikers can start scoring match in match out then be assured I am going to win a big percentage of the remaining games,” he noted.

On the porous defense that has so far leaked 15 goals in six matches, he said “We had issues with our defenders but I can assure everyone that we have sorted that and we don’t expect them to concede cheap goals anymore. As a coach you are a parent and one of our responsibilities is finding what is ailing your team and try to fix it earlier which I have done with the defenders here.”