I take the blame: Mhofu

By Blessing Malinganiza

Warriors coach Sunday Chidzambwa says he takes the blame for their exit at the ongoing Afcon finals in Egypt.

Zimbabwe were humiliated 4-0 by DR Congo Sunday night which saw their hopes of going to the next round stopped.

Zimbabwe needed to win Sunday’s game to go to the next round.

“We conceded a very early goal, we had to chase the game all the way and we couldn’t come back. But it was a bad performance on our part.

“I take the blame and l think in the near future we need to approach the game differently. We had a very bad day in office,” he said.

Goalkeeper Elvis Chipezeze was the fall guy but Chidzambwa says all departments didn’t play well.

“We didn’t play well in all departments, we had to change the goalkeeper in warm up because the first choice got injured.

“But it’s not an excuse at all, we played badly. We conceded easy goals and it was a bad performance on our part in every department.

“I think we need to go home and rewind our performances and get the way forward. Definitely if you look at our game the way we started, we were very slow and l think complacency was there,” he said.

Zimbabwe also suffered blows going into the DRC game with Alec Mudimu and Divine Lunga getting injured while Marvelous Nakamba and Edmore Sibanda failing to recover.

Chigova suffered a hamstring during warmup.

Chidzambwa lamented the injuries.

“You are allowed to bring 23 players and if any of those gets injured you need to replace them. We replaced all the injured players so the players who played should have delivered but unfortunately we lost because we played badly.

“We take the blame and we have to regroup and look for the way forward.

“I think we were all watching the game, we made mistakes and conceded early and we had to chase the game.

“And you know chasing the game against a good team like DR Congo is not easy and we never came to the party,” he said. H-Metro