Gor Mahia coach Jonathan McKinstry feels his Tusker FC counterpart Robert Matano deserves to be given time by the club to turn their bad form around given his past record.
McKinstry’s men beat Tusker 1-0 in a league clash on Sunday to leave Matano hanging onto his job following revelations from club chairman Charles Gacheru that he had to beat Gor or be dismissed.
The brewers have had a poor start to the 2023-24 campaign, winning just two of their opening seven games, to leave them 12th on the table with eight points, but McKinstry thinks the veteran coach should not be judged by the current run since he has already proved before that he is a winner.
“It has been a slow start for them but good footballers don’t turn bad overnight so we expect them to come strong again when we meet them in the second leg,” McKinstry said on Sunday.
“We managed to pip them by a point [last season] but you don’t turn into a bad team or a bad coach overnight so he’s going through a rough patch and I expect him to get through it.
“Coaches get put under a huge amount of pressure and everyone myself, Robert comes into this league to work all day.”
“It is not a 9am-5pm job, the moment you wake up in the morning until the moment you go to bed and you have four-five hours of sleep because you are constantly thinking of how to improve the team.
“You have to hand over that to the player to go out there. A single thing can be the difference between winning and losing. Someone missing a chance or giving away a penalty and that is the thing.”
The Gor Mahia coach pointed to Tusker’s recent success as the reason Matano needs to be afforded more time, having won the title in 2020-21 and 2021-22 even though the latter was nullified, before losing last season’s crown K’Ogalo by just one point.
“You have to look at something over a breath of time not six or seven games. Tusker won two league titles back-to-back and last season had more points than any other team outside of Gor Mahia for the last 15 years,” he added.
“Tusker finished second last year and had more points in the KPL other than K’Ogalo. A bit like when Liverpool got 98 points and didn’t win the league, you cannot say it is a bad season.
“In the last three years, Tusker and Robert have picked up the most points and I am sure they will come again. It is not like playing PlayStation. It is human beings on the pitch, some days it works some days it doesn’t.”
Besides the aforementioned league wins, Matano also led Tusker to the 2012 crown, having secured the 2009 title with Sofapaka in their maiden season in the top flight.
Tusker will face Matano’s former side Sofapaka on Saturday but it is still not known whether he will be in the dugout by then.