For all their early promise as serious TNM Super League championship contenders, Blue Eagles\u2019 free-fall continued yesterday when they suffered their third consecutive defeat after a merciless 0-4 pounding by Kamuzu Barracks (KB) at Civo Stadium.<\/p>\n
The fall from grace started last week when Eagles lost 1-2 to Silver Strikers, followed by a midweek 4-5 post-match penalty defeat at the hands of Nyasa Big Bullets in the Presidential Cup.<\/p>\n
Then KB rubbed more salt on Eagles\u2019 festering wound through Harvey Nkacha\u2019s second-half brace, Steve Chagoma\u2019s own-goal and Diouf Simaone thunderous free-kick.<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, Eagles lead the standings with 18 points from eight games, followed by Silver on 16 points then Mafco third with 14 points.<\/p>\n
In a post-match interview, Eagles coach Derklerk Msakakuona, had more questions than answers, saying: \u201cWe tried hard but it was not our day. We are not under pressure. Definitely, we will recover.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sooner the cops recover, the better otherwise Sunday they were tortured and teased. They spent the better part of the game chasing their own shadows and looked disjointed.<\/p>\n
The scoreline could have been more if KB were more clinical in front of goal.<\/p>\n
Eagles captain Chagoma and goalkeeper John Soko made errors that gifted KB the goals.<\/p>\n
Chagoma, without being subjected to pressure, directed his header into his own net after 25 minutes.<\/p>\n
Simaone made it 2-0 with a thunderous free-kick after 38 minutes. The ball looked harmless, but it slipped past Soko into the net. The dull first-half ended 2-0 in favour KB.<\/p>\n
In the second half, KB continued to pile the pressure on the leaders. Nkacha made it 3-0 after 53 minutes before he eventually completed his double.<\/p>\n
KB coach Billy Phambala said he had set himself a target of 25 points in the first round.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team is slowly gelling. I am really pleased with the performance of the players. I think Eagles players have lost confidence following three successive defeats,\u201d Phambala said.<\/p>\n
In other games played yesterday, Karonga United and Wizards drew 0-0 at Kamuzu Stadium.<\/p>\n
Line-ups <\/strong><\/p>\n KB: Lemani Nthala, Steve Kamanga, Robert Simkonda, Pempho Kamsichiri, Ben Issah, Davie Banda, Dan Ziba, Nkacha, Manase Chiyesa, Simaone, Wonderful Tumeyo.<\/p>\n Eagles: Soko, Chagoma, Alupheous Nyoni, Enock Likoswe, Ackim Kazombo, Gilbert Chirwa, Gregory Nachipo, Oswald Maonga, Mathews Boloweza, John Malidadi Jnr, Victor Nyirenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For all their early promise as serious TNM Super League championship contenders, Blue Eagles\u2019 free-fall continued yesterday when they suffered their third consecutive defeat after a merciless 0-4 pounding by Kamuzu Barracks (KB) at Civo Stadium. The fall from grace started last week when Eagles lost 1-2 to Silver Strikers, followed by a midweek 4-5 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25285,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25283\/revisions\/25285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}