BUL slump to home defeat

Hussein Zzinda's 72nd minute strike compounded misery for Abbey Kikomeko's Eastern Giants, who have now gone three straight league games without a win.

FOOTBALL | BUL effectively surrendered the StarTimes Uganda Premier League leadership on Tuesday after slumping to defeat at home to UPDF.

Hussein Zzinda's 72nd minute strike compounded misery for Abbey Kikomeko's Eastern Giants, who have now gone three straight league games without a win.

The defeat also appears to hand the title initiative to champions Vipers, who are in third place and four points adrift of BUL with two games in hand, with leaders Kitara on 40 points after 20 games.

Back in October, BUL were cruising with six perfect results in their opening six games when they arrived at Bombo Military Barracks. But Bernard Muwanga and Sam Kintu quick goals rigged the BUL system.

And Tuesday's chaotic victory gives the military side hope of survival after pulling to 16 points from 20 games albeit while remaining in the third and final drop place.

BUL reportedly had a crisis meeting earlier this week and checked in at the FUFA Technical Centre in Njeru with renewed verve to clean their nostrils but three substitutions inside the hour could not have helped their push.

Coach Kikomeko threw in Isma Mugulusi for Martin Aprem and Lawrence Tezikya for Jeremy Kirya on 54 minutes as the edible oil makers appeared to run frustrated with the visitor's patient probing and confidence.

What should have been a tactical nous then started smelling like the panic button - especially when playing host to a UPDF side that has been mired in the relegation drag all season - when Kikomeko called to his bench barely three minutes later.

In trudged Benon Tohomera for influential leftback Nicolas Mwere in an enforced change that did little to show that the team that led the table for the better first half of the season was up to anything.

With the clocking ticking down to the final quarter, Kikomeko threw his last dices, pulling out Amos Kirya and Ibrahim Orit for Reagan Kalyowa and Gerald Ogweti.

Almost immediately, UPDF pulled the trigger, the damage of Zzinda's shot worsening the crisis for Jinja's most successful club since Nile's famous runs in the early 90s.

As frustrations boiled, Gerald Ogweti was sent into the dressing room to leave BUL with a mountain to climb - and one they could not climb.

The Eastern Giants painfully watched as Vipers and KCCA took turns to "refuse" the league title last season after having marched ahead in the first half of the season.

And coming into the end of December, there were lingering fears that history could repeat itself again. The difference, however, was that last season Alex Isabirye had quit BUL for Vipers at the turn of the corner and this time round they had a committed Kikomeko.

But the difference has turned out to be more of the same and BUL will probably need throw the kitchen sink at the players to get them back running again.

BUL have three sobering days to arrest the slump before the visit of SC Villa to Njeru on Friday.

Surely, they will be three tough days for Kikomeko and his technical staff.