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Grace Chingoma Sports Reporter
DESPITE their false start to the season, FC Platinum insist they are not pressing the panic button and have once again backed coach Norman Mapeza and his troops to find their rhythm and start picking up points in the Premiership.

FC Platinum president George Mawere said yesterday they were fully behind their coach and his team and were taking their bad run as “just a phase that will come to pass’’.

Mawere said FC Platinum could be paying the price for chasing glory on both the domestic scene and the African Safari, having taken part in the CAF Confederation Cup.

The platinum miners have in the last few weeks battled to clear a fixture backlog and play catch up with the rest of the Premiership.

But a run of just one win and a draw in six starts has left FC Platinum in 13th place with just four points in the bag and a section of their fans appears to have panicked and are already sounding alarm bells.

Platinum are 11 points behind current leaders Chicken Inn and Mawere yesterday dismissed rumours that his executive had given Mapeza a one-game ultimatum to win on May Day or face the axe.

There are indications that pressure against Mapeza and his team has heightened ahead of their clash against Tsholotsho but Mawere denied they had issued an ultimatum to the former Warriors coach to win the game at Mandava.

Mawere said they were standing by their man.

“We are happy with the technical team. It is just a phase considering that we played in the CAF Confederation Cup. We have had to play too many matches inside a week. We also took part in the Independence Cup, which is yet to be concluded.

“There is no ultimatum. There is nothing like that. We will come up the ladder,” said Mawere.

Mapeza is no stranger to the kind of situation he faces now as seven years ago he was in a similar scenario while taking charge of Monomotapa, who later went on to be crowned Premiership champion’s after losing their opening four games.

The coach yesterday said he was happy with the support he has received from the club’s chiefs.

“We are soldering on. The team is playing well but the problem is we are failing to hit the back of the net.

“We are losing matches but if you look at the way we would have played it is a different story.

“We even had a very good performance against Whawha but we could not score.

That is the most disturbing thing that you play very well but don’t get the result.

“I understand about these things as this is the scenario that I went through with Monomotapa. But we have been talking to the players about it and today if you saw the mood after training, you couldn’t tell that it is the same team that lost at the weekend,” Mapeza said.

Mapeza said they would not make any special plans for Tsholotsho.

“To be honest, the club has been understanding and supportive. It has been terrible in the past two months and I know there are unconfirmed reports that I have been given one game by the executive but all that is not true.

“In all the games we would be looking forward to win and we go with a positive attitude but at times we fail and that’s it.

“We just have to be calm and the results will come.

If you look at the table, the points difference is not much, and if we can win two games we would be talking of a different story,” said the former Warriors coach, who turned up for crack Turkish side Galatasaray.