MFM FC Coach, Fidelis Ilechukwu, on Tuesday described as painful the Match Day 29 of the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) home loss to the relegation threatened Plateau United FC.
Ilechukwu said that the underperformance of his team against the Savannah Boys was not in any way good for their progress in the competition.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Lagos-based MFM lost 0-1 to Plateau United at Agege Stadium.
He said that winning home matches go a long way in determining a club’s status in the league and the battle for survival.
“If we are to stay afloat in NPFL, we need to take our home matches seriously; we cannot afford to be losing this kind of matches, it is not good.
“There may be need for us to re-appraise our approach to home matches and ensure that we win all the remaining ones.
“We know that the team we played is trying to avoid relegation but that was not an excuse for us to underperform.
“We will look forward to other matches which are also critical to us and ensure that we do our best to garner more points and make our fans happy,’’ he said.
Plateau United’s Kabiru Umar, who scored the only goal of the match, said that his team was more determined to win.
“We have our strategy for winning the match, we will not like to be relegated; so we came fighting for our survival.
“The goal came at the right time and we defended it, we are not bothered if we are playing at home or not, what is important to us is the three points at stake,’’ he said.
NAN reports that Umar, who capitalised on the poor defending by MFM, scored the goal in the 15th minute.
MFM had its chance to level the game when they had a penalty in the 20th minute but it was spurned by Stephen Odey.
MFM have so far lost its home matches to the last two teams in the relegation zone; losing to 3SC of Ibadan placed 16th on the log in the Match Day 23.
It also lost to Kabiru Baraje-tutored Plateau United placed 15th on the NPFL log on Sunday.
With the defeat, the Daniel Olukoya, boys have now slipped to 11th from 10th position.
It has 36 points from 27 matches, winning 10, drew 6 and lost 11.
Plateau United on the other hand moved up two places to 13th with 36 points from 28 matches, winning 9, drew 9 and lost 10.
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