Give us time – Speid - Cavalier target RSPL improvement

After just one point from their last two Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) matches, Cavalier coach Rudolph Speid promises that his team will get better in the next two weeks.

Cavalier drew 1-1 with Humble Lion at Stadium East field on Sunday and Speid said that the team’s preseason preparation got under way extremely late due to him being overseas, among other issues.

Young players

He also noted that they have been playing with a number of young players who are new to the league and this, he thinks, will also take time to come together. However, he says that after two more weeks, everyone will start seeing a much better Cavalier.

“We struggled for preparation at the start of the season, so you will not see us at our best for the next two weeks because we only got about two weeks of preparation before the season began. So we are late and it didn’t help last week that our central midfielder, Byran English, broke his leg,” he said.

“But we are not perturbed because we know that in the next two weeks, we will start to play better and better as the league goes on. We are just trying to get the measure of the league and kick on from there. I don’t know where this result puts us though. Humble Lion played us a good game but a lot of my players are only making their (RSPL) debut this season. I am sure they will get better as the season goes on and I am sure it will happen because they are quality players.”

He added that they will get even stronger after the Manning Cup competition has ended. “When the Manning Cup is up, you will see a lot of other top players, especially from the JC (Jamaica College) team and Wolmer’s team. We keep producing these top players, so when the Manning Cup is finished, I will be hard-stretched to know what my squad will look like. But we are not worried because these are all quality players, but by the end of the month you will start to see us play much better,” he said.

Humble Lion’s in-form attacker Rohan Richards opened the scoring with his third goal of the season, three minutes before the interval. But Alex Marshall’s 84th-minute penalty earned the home team a point.

Cavalier are sixth in the standings with four points, one behind fifth- place Humble Lion, who have five points.