AFC Leopards coach Patrick Aussems has blamed the team’s 2-1 FKF Premier League defeat against Nairobi City Stars on childish mistakes committed by his players.
Despite Ingwe taking an early lead in the fixture at Nyayo Stadium courtesy of Victor Omuse, the Simba wa Nairobi turned on the screw to grab two goals courtesy of Kevin Etemesi and inflict AFC their ninth defeat of the current season.
The defeat against City Stars came just a week after AFC’s dream of wrapping up the season with silverware was shattered after losing 2-1 against Kakamega Homeboyz in the semi-finals of the Mozzart Bet FKF Cup.
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The 58-year-old Belgian tactician has blamed his players for lacking aggressiveness offensively and defensively and further insisted they were careless against City Stars, who eventually retained their status in the top-flight following the victory.
“We had put all our effort to win the domestic cup but we lost and it was because of our defensive mistakes, we once again made the same mistakes in our danger area, childish mistakes against [City Stars] and we got punished again,” said Aussems.
“Just like against Homeboyz my boys were not aggressive offensively and defensively, you need to be aggressive especially when playing against a team that is fighting against relegation and defensively we were not perfect, we could not clear balls when were supposed to.”
The former Simba SC coach added: “After the first 15 to 20 minutes I could sense we were going to lose the game and it could end in a bad way, we were giving away balls from the middle of play and those behind were not good at defending.”
The defeat pushed AFC to seventh position on the 18-team table with 48 points from 31 matches and they will next take on relegated Vihiga Bullets at Bukhungu Stadium on Saturday.