Vipers Sports Club concluded the StarTimes Uganda Premier League first round campaign with a 1-0 triumph over KCCA FC at the St Mary’s Stadium, Kitende.
It is head coach Fred Kajoba’s first full season after taking over from Edward Golola. This has been an incredible first round for the Venoms who will hope to build on it during the second round in a bid to retain league glory.
We concluded the 2020/21 opening round with 33 points. However, by this time last season, we had been able to register our best ever first round points tally of 36 beating the previous record of 35 points set by the 2014/15 league winning squad surpassing his own record in the process.
Ahead of the decisive second round, here is a recap of a statistical view of the concluded first opening reflecting the club’s performances in numbers.
15
Number of games Vipers played in the first round of the league between December 2020 and March 2021.
10
The matches that we won during the campaign; 8 of those victories were at home while the two wins were away in Arua and Njeru against Onduparaka and Busoga United respectively.
3
Vipers picked three draws on the road with Kyetume FC, Wakiso Giants FC and Express FC.
All these stalemates involved goals (2-2, 1-1 and one all respectively).
2
The number of times we lost or failed to recover from a goal down. The Venoms lost 1-0 to Mbarara City FC before suffering another 2-1 defeat to bogey side URA FC in Ndejje.
33
The total number of goals scored in the first round games with Paul Mucureezi contributing the lion’s share.
7
Paul Mucureezi topped the club’s scorers’ chart netting seven times from 13 games. He scored four away goals (against Kyetume FC, twice against Busoga United FC and Onduparaka), the three were all scored at home in matches against, Kitara FC and MYDA FC). Yunus Sentamu scored 6, Cesar Manzoki netted 5 goals while Ibrahim Orit registered 4 goals to his name.
14
Goals we conceded in total. Infact we doubled the number of goals we leaked compared to the 2019/20 first round where we only let in 7.
6
Matches where we kept clean sheets and all were at the St Mary’s stadium, a clear statistic that our defence was solid and intact playing at home against opponents such as KCCA FC, SC Villa, Bright Stars FC, MYDA FC, UPDF FC and BUL FC.
13
The number of man of the match prizes that our players scooped. Karim Watambala won it three times. David Bagoole, Paul Mucureezi and Ibrahim Orit won 2 times while Musa Ssali, Paul Willa and Bashir Asiku were also named.
13
Disan Galiwango is the only player who featured most for the team in the opening round. He only missed one game, the 1-0 defeat to Mbarara through suspension.
2
Vipers failed to score twice; the Venoms were unable to find the net against Mbarara City FC subsequently losing 1-0 and against KCCA FC whom they overcame thanks to an own goal by their defender Peter Magambo.
0
We did not get any or concede penalties throughout the 15 league games played.
6
Were the number of assists from Disan Galiwango. The left back leads with the most assists in 13 games.
4
The number of assists apiece contributed by Cesar Manzoki & Paul Mucureezi.
3
Goal assists managed by Shaban Muhammed and Paul Willa.
26
Total number of bookings that we registered in the first round. No red card was seen luckily throughout the 15 encounters.
20
Goals scored at the St Mary’s stadium in eight games played while 13 were scored on the road in seven outings.
Biggest win:
The 7-0 win over MYDA FC is the biggest scoreline recorded so far not just in the first round but also at the St Mary’s Stadium, Kitende.
The statistics above reveal there has been an improvement in our performance especially going forward, the source of the goals spread across the team explaining the increase in number of goals scored, however the defence has to tremendously improve going into the second round.
As we wait to kick start the second round engagements, the technical team is busy assessing all players performances to devise a proper strategy for the forthcoming final bend.
Copyright 2021 Vipers Sports Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.viperssc.co.ug as the source.