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Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter
HARARE football giants Dynamos have made the first move ahead of the mid-season transfer window which opens on Monday after they managed to lure back their former midfielder Archford Gutu. The 25-year-old trained with the Glamour Boys during pre-season, but could not agree terms with his former club. However, the club’s marketing and public relations executive, Tinashe Farawo, yesterday said they have taken the Zimbabwe international on board for the remainder of the season.

“We have signed Gutu for the remainder of the season. He is one player who is not new to the Dynamos culture and we hope his experience will come in handy.

“This is part of our efforts to strengthen the squad. We have to ensure that we give our technical team maximum support by doing everything we can to help secure players. I am sure we will be able to add four more if the funds are permitting,” said Farawo.

DeMbare are aiming to add at least four more players at the request of coach Tonderai Ndiraya, who has often complained about the quality of his squad.

Gutu spent the last few months on the sidelines after he was released by Swedish club IFK Varnamo. The club had a massive clear-out after their team was relegated to the third-tier of the Swedish league last year.

Gutu was in DeMbare’s plans during the pre-season under previous coach Lloyd Chigowe, but the midfielder stopped coming to training after failing to reach an agreement with DeMbare.

The Glamour Boys were strict on giving their new signings long-term contracts, but the midfielder was not keen.
In 2016, Gutu spent a bit of time training with Dynamos again, but left to join bitter rivals CAPS United, where he endured a difficult period, struggling to get game time under Lloyd Chitembwe.

He is expected to feature in Dynamos’ next game against Chapungu after the PSL break. The Harare giants have been struggling to make their impact felt in the domestic league after losing almost an entire squad during the off-season break. They are currently 12th on the log standings with 15 points in the bag. DeMbare trail log leaders FC Platinum by nine points after 12 games and have generally been ruled out of this year’s championship race.

Team manager, Richard Chihoro, said they are looking forward to the remainder of the season.
Chihoro said the break, which was necessitated by the ongoing AFCON tournament in Egypt, was a blessing in disguise for their team. He said DeMbare could not have the luxury of sending players home to rest.

“We have generally been training. We could only rest a few players that had played many games because we have a lot of things to cover.
“We are also happy that all of our players are back to full fitness,” said Chihoro.

DeMbare’s foreign players Robert Sackey, Claude Junior Ngahan and Vincent Mbega have missed most of the matches this season due to knocks.