The inevitability of MWOS fans getting impatient and baying for Lloyd Mutasa’s blood is crystal clear.
The Punters, after a brilliant start to their debut campaign in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League, have crumbled in the last 5 matches.
MWOS went for 16 matches without defeat in the first half of the season and looked like genuine title contenders- a development which gave their fans hope that they could become only the second team since Black Rhinos in 1984 to win the title in their debut campaign in the country’s top-flight league.
During the aforementioned period, the Norton-based side were on top of the log table from week 3 to week 17 and barely conceded goals, with their back line of captain Tafadzwa Nyabunze, Valentine Katsande and Innocent Zambezi, as tight as ever.
But all that has gone up in smoke.
Mutasa’s men have picked up just two points from a possible 15 in their last five matches.
Yesterday’s defeat to relegation-threatened Dynamos was their third in five games, after falling to Yadah and FC Platinum.
While an interplay of several factors can be attributed to explain The Punters’ struggles of late, Mutasa, surely cannot be exonerated.
The seasoned coach has made a lot of questionable decisions of late, especially when it comes to match-deciding substitutions.
Last week, in the 1-1 draw with Herentals at Ngoni Stadium, the withdrawal of gritty midfield dynamo Tinotenda ‘Dhiziri’ Mutyambizi in the 47th minute was decisive.
MWOS lost shape after the former Yadah midfielder was taken off and barely threatened the students in the entire second half.
Another big problem for MWOS, from a neutral viewpoint, is Mutasa’s squad management.
The soft-spoken gaffer’s over-reliance on stylish midfielder Malvern Mudzuka for creativity in the MWOS engine room is there for all to see.
When, or if Mudzuka is not in the best form, MWOS rarely tick.
Mutasa’s failure to solve MWOS’ chance-wasting is one of, if not the biggest, problem the team has.
Billy Veremu, despite being the joint top-goal scorer in the 2025 season, has missed a glut of chances of late.
Veremu and Arthur Banda, in particular, have been very wasteful in front of goal, and anyone who watched the defeat to FC Platinum will argue that MWOS could have, or should have been at least 2-up by the time they conceded against Norman Mapeza’s side.
Even the recruitment of Innocent Masiiwa has not helped in the improvement of MWOS’ conversion rate.
To prove that conversion has been the biggest letdown for MWOS, Banda Everson Feremba has just scored one goal apiece while Masiiwa is yet to get off the mark, four games into his well-documented return to MWOS.
What’s interesting about Masiiwa’s return to MWOS, as per Mutasa’s recommendation, is that it was a rare scenario where a club pays a transfer fee to purchase a player.
That investment, however, is yet to pay off.
Are the MWOS players getting fatigued?
That is the question MWOS fans are dying to get an answer for.
History will remind us that last year, in the Northern Region Soccer League title race, Mutasa signed some players he trusted to use and continuously used the same players game by game, until they were swimmingly fatigued.
Mutasa brought to the club Ian Nekati, for instance, but the veteran right back barely featured, posing a question: why was he signed in the first place if he wasn’t trusted to play and pave the way for player rotation?
While the debate of why MWOS have struggled of late can go on until the cows come home, one thing is for sure, the soft-spoken coach is certainly under the microphone and he knows it.
