Setubal’s Keita heaps praise on new boss Manuel Fernandes
Striker expects team to quickly climb table
 Vitoria de Setubal striker Ladji Keita has hailed the positive effect new coach Manuel Fernandes has had on the club. The ex-Leiria boss guided the team to victory against Leixoes in his first game on the weekend and according to Keita the new manager “has changed everything”.
Setubal have had a traumatic start to the season. After a radical overhaul in the playing staff in the summer, a series of disastrous results saw the historic Portuguese team at the basement of the Liga Sagres table. Their predicament was compounded by some heavy losses, and coach Carlos Azenha was shown the door in mid September, barely three months after taking the position.
It took the board over a month to appoint a full-time replacement, as Manuel Fernandes was persuaded to leave his post at Uniao de Leiria and take the reigns at Setubal. Senegalese striker Keita is convinced that under Fernandes the team will soon be climbing the table.
Confidence injection
“Manuel Fernandes managed to change everything in just three days of training. I’m not saying he’s changed the way the team plays, because he hasn’t had time for that, but he brought an injection of confidence to the changing room,” said Keita speaking to Portuguese sports daily A Bola.
“This was to a large extent just what the team needed. We have good players and we’re going to improve.”
Keita scored the winning goal in the 1-0 victory over Leixoes on Sunday, and the marksman is looking forward to working with Fernandes who achieved legendary status in his playing days as one of Sporting’s highest scoring strikers of all time.
“I’ll certainly learn a lot with him. But the first thing he did for me was simply to say that he believed in me and believed I would score even though I hadn’t scored yet. It was just the tonic to motivate me.”
Sympathy for Azenha
Keita is at a loss to explain why things went so badly for Carlos Azenha, and has some sympathy for his ex-coach. “I really don’t know what went wrong. I think it was the difficulties involved in creating a team in which almost all the players were new to the club. It’s not an easy task for anybody.
“Now with Manuel Fernandes the team is finding its normal path and becoming more competitive. We’ll start rising up the table and I hope to continue scoring goals.”
by Tom Kundert
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