By Neto Baptiste
Coaches of two newly promoted teams in the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association (ABFA) Premier Division say they are pushing their players to improve weekly and aim for a profitable finish amongst the heavy hitters.
Ottos Rangers’ Renee Sellwood and All Saints United’s Shcyan Jeffers, who lay third and sixth, respectively, in the 10-team standings have expressed confidence in the ability of their players to remain competitive through the two rounds of competition.
Sellwood, the assistant coach at Rangers, said his players continue to grow in confidence with each game.
“The coaching staff is very focused and we are taking it one game at a time. We try our best to strategise as much as possible based on the opponents and that also is working with the players’ confidence because in the last game our strategy basically worked perfectly,” he said.
“I want to win, so that’s the idea I am keeping in the guys’ head and right now their belief is very high, so I wouldn’t want to put them in a mind frame of aiming for third place,” he added.
Rangers, a team that gained promotion to the top flight via the association’s playoff system last season, have won two and loss one of their three outings as they sit on six points, one point behind both first and second placed, Five Islands and Grenades.
Meanwhile, United’s Jeffers said there are some aspects of their play that are in need of urgent attention.
“There are a lot of areas we still need to improve on and there a lot of areas we will continue to need improving on, such as to learn to hold the ball some more, learn to score more goals — because we are lacking that definitely. We are getting the chances but we are not scoring them and it’s becoming a problem with the team right now,” the coach said.
United gained automatic promotion to the Premier Division after topping the First Division standings last season. They have one win, one loss and one draw in their three outings thus far.
The other newly promoted team, Pigotts Bullets, are eighth in the standings with three points.
