By Carlena Knight
The Head Coach of Drahz KFC Old Road, Vincent “Nabu” Samuel, remains adamant that the chances of his team claiming the Antigua Premier League (APL) title are not unrealistic.
Presently, Old Road sit in the 8th spot with 11 points in the 10-team standings, after winning their last encounter.
Samuel was a guest on the Good Morning JoJo Sports show on Monday when he made the comments.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s steep in terms of where the championship is concerned because if we were to look over the past season, teams have won the competition with 36 points, 34 points; they have not gone into 40 yet.
He added, “We are still in position to get to that level and more. It’s a very tight situation and if you look over the games that have been playing, teams are evenly matched. Some upsets could happen. It could happen for us too, but we are pretty much optimistic that the championship is available to anyone at this point.”
Old Road made headlines some time ago by importing 11 overseas-based players. This number has however dwindled to five, according to Samuel, who revealed that the round south team is making changes to the player roster amidst the January transfer window.
“We have already made it a concerted effort a couple of weeks ago, more less to send home some of the players that we had and we are happy with where we are at, at this point in time. There will be some replacements. As I said, we are negotiating those terms and conditions, whether it be local or from an overseas perspective. I am not at privileged to tell you what exactly the situation is. It could change or it could not.”
The APL will break this weekend to facilitate the One Nation Concert. Samuel, who is not in favour of the week off, spoke on what plans they have put in place to gear up for the second round.
“Most naturally, we will try as much as possible to gel what we would have gotten in the transfer market over the next couple of days but we would love to play. It has happened this time already in the season, where we won, and then had a two-week break and then we switched back. It is what it is at this point in time; we have to live with it.
“We understand that this is the situation and during our week of training we will sit down as a coaching staff, look at exactly what we have and try as much as possible to feel the game or so to more or less build momentum going into the second half,” Samuel said.