Maritzburg United goalkeeper Shu-Aib Walters shocked over Ian Palmer axing
Walters: "It was a shocking decision"
Posted: 2012-01-18 14:13
Maritzburg United goalkeeper Shu-Aib Walters says he was shocked when he found out that the club had parted ways with former coach Ian Palmer.
Palmer's on and off relationship with the Team of Choice took another turn when his contract was terminated midway through the season, leaving the side in 11th position, four points away from the top eight.
"It was a big shock in our first week back in training to find out that coach Palmer was no longer part of the club," said Walters.
"Yes, we did go through a bit of a slump but taking into consideration how we started the season and how we ended the year, I'd say there we good signs of regaining our form."
United were unbeaten in their opening seven matches and after enduring a rough patch they finished the year on a three-match unbeaten run, drawing against AmaZulu and Moroka Swallows, and winning against Jomo Cosmos.
"In all honesty, we should've won all those games, especially the last one against Swallows where we were two goals up with less than 15 minutes to go, but yet again we gave away soft goals," said Walters.
"As players we've always taken our portion of the blame because we really feel we didn't do justice to ourselves.
"I can list a number of games where we dropped points unnecessarily, and had we not done that we would be settled in the top six at the moment."
However, the former Bafana Bafana international believes they don't have much time to think about the past as they have a chance to make amends in the second half of the season.
"The management will introduce the new coach in the near future and we don't have four or five games to try things out because if we don't get things right immediately we could be fighting in the relegation battle by then," said Walters.
"That said, sometimes change is good and we can only hope that will be the case again this time around. When Ian Palmer took over we were in a bad place and we finished strongly.
"If the new coach brings a similar impact then we'll be back up there because we're in a better position than we were at this stage last season."



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