Maccabi Netanya’s crisis continues. The team was defeated last night (Monday) 3:0 by Maccabi Tel Aviv in Bloomfield and recorded an eighth game in a row without a win, since the performance they gave against Beitar Jerusalem in the opening round. Netanya remained in last place in the table, but as of now there is no change in the status of coach Benny Lam , who continues to receive complete backing from the leaders of the team. The working assumption in Netanya is that coach Lam will be the one to lead the team in the upcoming games as well – against Bnei Rayna, Hapoel Hadera, Kiryat Shmona and MS Ashdod, and only after this series of games, decisions will be made regarding the continuation. Of course, if Netanya continues to lose and look bad, the club will recalculate the course both in terms of the coach’s position and in terms of the players.
“It doesn’t look good, we are not good enough,” they said in Netanya, at the end of the game. “We lack quality in the game. We have difficulty reaching scoring positions and there is a problem with the last action in the front.” Also yesterday in the loss to the Yellows in Bloomfield, it is difficult to name even one player who displayed a remarkable ability. Netanya came to the game without Patrick Twamsi, who is suffering from a torn hamstring and is expected to be absent for the next few weeks, as well as without the sick Florian Hartherz who was not included in the squad.
Although the January transfer window is very far away, in Netanya they are planning a kind of revolution in the players’ roster, when currently they are talking about replacing four-five foreign and Israeli players who are very disappointing. The main changes will be in the front part, when the professional team is already trying to find a new foreign striker who can join. Erich Barko, who started last night and again was very disappointing, is already marked for replacement and also Florian Hartherz and Boris Eno may find themselves out.
“We prepared in the best way for this game and hoped that things would look different,” Omri Gendelman said at the end of the game. “We came and fought and the players really gave their all and Maccabi Tel Aviv is really a team at the highest level in the league, but we still wanted to get points at their home in Bloomfield and that sucks a lot.”
Gendelman tried to explain what is not working in his team and added: “Last year everything was fine and dandy, we looked good against every team. We scored goals and took points and now we are in a kind of snowball and we need to be strong enough. Obviously we will have to return the faith and love of the crowd, they give We are criticized and rightfully so. We should all stay together.”
Regarding the goal the team conceded in the 45th minute, Gendelman added: “It’s not the first time this has happened to us, we started the game not well but we knew how to come back and played well. We pressed and we were in their half and we should have known to go into halftime with a 1:0 deficit, but there are players here In their nature they constantly want to press and win and it cost us dearly.”
Gendelman was asked if he and his teammates had already internalized that, unlike last season, this season they are a bottom team and replied: “Unequivocally we need to make this switch. There are quality players here, very good players. Last season we got used to something and now we definitely need to make a switch and start taking points To get out of this crisis and move up in the table.”