{"id":56001,"date":"2017-11-11T09:12:21","date_gmt":"2017-11-11T07:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=56001"},"modified":"2017-11-11T09:12:22","modified_gmt":"2017-11-11T07:12:22","slug":"survival-battle-intensifies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2017\/11\/11\/survival-battle-intensifies\/","title":{"rendered":"Survival battle intensifies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Be Forward Wanderers, Nyasa Big Bullets and Silver Strikers chase the TNM Super League championship, down the log table, teams are fighting for their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Masters Security Services, who are placed 12th, welcome Premier Bet Wizards at Dedza Stadium this afternoon. Wizards are on position 14.<\/p>\n<p>Masters have 25 points from 23 games, two points ahead of Wizards.<\/p>\n<p>In another encounter, Red Lions meet second-from-bottom Blantyre United at Chilomoni Stadium in Blantyre.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald Mtetemera\u2019s side is coming from their last weekend\u2019s 1-0 win over Chitipa United at Karonga Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>But Lions are no pushover as they recently ended Silver Strikers\u2019 unbeaten run.<\/p>\n<p>The Lions\u2019 win over Silver came after four successive league losses. The soldiers must pray for Innocent Bokosi\u2019s good form upfront.<\/p>\n<p>In the first-round, the two sides drew 1-1.<\/p>\n<p>In recent seasons, reaching a 30-point-mark has guaranteed teams\u2019 survival from relegation.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, Airborne Rangers managed just that and survived relegation.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, Civil Sporting Club and Mzuni FC also stayed up after amassing 30 and 29 points, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Mzuni, however, escaped the chop by a whisker, thanks to their superior goal-difference after finishing level with Rangers.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, Wizards escaped relegation in similar style.<\/p>\n<p>Karonga United, Civil and Max Bullets with 27, 25 and eight points respectively, were relegated.<\/p>\n<p>Masters Coach, Abbas Makawa, said overcoming their fellow league strugglers is key to survival.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are calm because we have seven games to play. And definitely, we are in a better position because we cannot fail to get five points or more in those games,\u201d Makawa said.<\/p>\n<p>With seven and five games remaining for some teams, each of the six bottom teams\u2014including Chitipa and Dwangwa United\u2014 can reach the 30-point-mark.<\/p>\n<p>Chitipa Coach, Kondwani Mwalweni, insisted that his side will fight until the end of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Be Forward Wanderers, Nyasa Big Bullets and Silver Strikers chase the TNM Super League championship, down the log table, teams are fighting for their lives. Masters Security Services, who are placed 12th, welcome Premier Bet Wizards at Dedza Stadium this afternoon. Wizards are on position 14. Masters have 25 points from 23 games, two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56001","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\/56001","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=56001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56005,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56001\/revisions\/56005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}