Barker sounds red card alarm

SINGIDA: SIMBA Head Coach Steve Barker hailed his side’s resilience after they maintained their perfect away start with a 2-1 victory over Singida Black Stars at Airtel Stadium in Singida, but admitted their growing disciplinary problems must be addressed.

The victory gave Simba a third successive away win in the Mainland Premier League, an impressive start that has, nevertheless, been overshadowed by a worrying trend.

The team has finished each of its last three league matches with a player sent off. Barker commended his players for collecting nine points from the three away assignments, saying their commitment, quality and resilience had been crucial to the run.

“That was never going to be an easy task having three away games in a matter of weeks, so for us to come away with nine points is especially important.

A massive congratulations to the players.”

But the coach conceded that repeatedly playing with 10 men is making life unnecessarily difficult for his team.

Simba again controlled large spells of the game against Singida, particularly in the first half, but had to negotiate another difficult period after losing a player to a red card before eventually securing the points.

For Barker, the priority now is to maintain the team’s impressive form while ensuring players show greater discipline.

“Despite obviously three matches in a row getting a red card, which is obviously something that, you know, we need to address because it does make it difficult for us,” Barker said.

While Simba celebrated another important victory, Singida Head Coach Papy Kimoto admitted his team had been tactically below the required level.

Kimoto identified poor positional play as a major weakness, particularly in attack, where Singida struggled to create the impact he expected.

“Tactically, we were not wellpositioned. You cannot be tactically better without the physical side; the two work hand in hand.

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So, yes, it was a positional issue, and today our attack simply did not click as it should have,” Kimoto said.

He acknowledged the quality of their opponents but insisted the defeat should serve as a lesson rather than a reason for his team to lose belief.

Singida, he said, must use the coming week to improve their tactical and physical preparation and work towards narrowing the gap with the league’s bigger sides.

“We played against a big team; we have to acknowledge that they are slightly superior to us, and we must work to close that gap between Msigwa dismisses them and us.”