Fight or be left behind, Khenyeza warns his troops

Golden Arrows coach Mabhuti Khenyeza has given an impression that the club’s all-time top scorer Knox Mutizwa wasn’t working hard enough, hence he’s only started two of Abafana Bes’thende’s seven league games thus far.

Despite scoring eight goals, across all competition, to be the side’s leading scorer last season, Mutizwa has been playing second fiddle to Ryan Moon and Lungelo Nguse this season as Arrows have had a dream start.

“We’ve created competition since the pre-season. We sat down with the players and told  them that ‘if you don’t fight, you can’t get into the team’. You can see our main striker from last season isn’t here because I don’t think he’s pushing enough,” Khenyeza said after their come-from-behind 1-2 win away to Cape Town Spurs on Tuesday.

“In football you have to have all the qualities; you can’t be good only on the ball and lack off the ball. They know it’s a fair and healthy competition.”

Mutizwa boasts 57 goals for the Durban side, making the highest scorer in the club’s history. The 29-year-old striker joined Arrows from Bidvest Wits in August 2017. Nguse, 24, has scored four goals already this term in the DStv Premiership to be the side’s leading scorer, while the 27-year-old Moon has two league goals to his name.

Arrows have emerged as one of the season’s surprise packages, having racked up four wins from seven outings so far with two draws and one defeat. Khenyeza has urged his troops to stay consistent and avoid fighting for survival at the later stages of the term.

“We need to maintain this run because we need to collect as many points as possible this early in the season, so that we don’t find ourselves flirting with relegation like last season, where we only managed to escape relegation in the last three games. We must keep pushing and not get carried away,” Khenyeza said.