18th October 2016. TUESDAY
RED ARROWS VS ZESCO UNITED
Nkoloma Stadium
15:00hrs
ZESCO United starts their catch up this Tuesday as they play away at Nkoloma Stadium against Red Arrows. ZESCO are the defending champions of the Super League who won it with 67 points last season and reached the last four of the CAF Champions League.
They are behind ZANACO with 18 points but have played 7 less games than the league leaders. Should ZESCO win all the 13 games remaining they will end up on 85 points. Those are same points that ZANACO will attain should they win all their remaining 7 games. The two teams (ZESCO and ZANACO) are meeting in this coming weekend in the week 29 rescheduled games and that game will be played at Sunset. But before that ZESCO has to negotiate with Red Arrows on Tuesday 18th October 2016. ZESCO has a near perfect head to head record against Red Arrows as the statistics show that in the last 21 games the two met, Red Arrows has only managed to win two 2 games, ZESCO winning 10 and 9 have been draws.
In the last 21 games Red Arrows have managed to beat ZESCO was in 2014 in Ndola and that game ended 1-0 but that season ZESCO went on to win the league. The other time Red Arrows beat ZESCO was in 2011 and that was another away fixture in Ndola, that game ended 1-0. Red Arrows has never beaten ZESCO at home and that will be a statistic that RED arrows would want to change. The two teams have already met this season at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium with ZESCO winning 2-0 on 6th July 2016.
In the last 21 games ZESCO has scored 21 goals while Red Arrows have only scored 9.
Coming into this encounter, Red Arrows are from losing at home to ZANACO while ZESCO are from beating Lusaka Dynamos in the league at Levy Mwanawasa and most recently have also ejected Power Dynamos in the Barclays League. Red Arrows have already attained 40 points that looks to be a safety zone for survival this season while ZESCO are chasing a third title on the bounce. ZESCO look strong but Red Arrows are organizing themselves very well in the recent times.
This won’t be an easy game for both teams and Red Arrows would want to end this stretch of losses at the hands of ZESCO and hand over the league to ZANACO who they denied in 2014. ZESCO needs to work on managing their chances well in front of goal and should they be wasteful in this one, Red Arrows may just surprise them.
I think the two teams will cancel themselves and record a 10th draw in the last 22 games.
MY VERDICT: RED ARROWS 1-1 ZESCO UNITED
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