Olunga - Kagere Partnership - The Best Ever for Gor Mahia?

Well, it is now probably official that Gor Mahia will be without Michael Olunga and Meddie Kagere for the 2016 season and have quickly moved to replace them with Jacob Keli and Rwandese Jacques Tusiyenge. But will the two be missed by the club? Gor Mahia fans tend to live by the slogan “no one is bigger than the club” and always believe replacements are readily available. Sometimes rightly so, like when Olunga replaced Danny, but at times it could be a miss…like the years it took to replace Peter Dawo. Olunga and Kagere scored a whooping 57 goals between in 2015 and I have been wondering how easy it is to replicate that, so I took a step down memory lane to see how lethal other strike partnerships were. Were they for example more prolific than Peter Dawo and Sammy Onyango “Jogoo” in 1987, Gor most successful year to date? Or the partnerships between the legendary goal getter of the 80s Hesbone Omollo and whoever he partnered with during those glory days of the 80s?

In fact they were. Dawo and Jogoo scored 47 goals in all competitions between them (31 goals in the league) in 1987 while Omollo and Hamisi managed 33 in 1983. It is only in the league where Hesbone Omollo / Gedion Hamisi and George Yoga / Nahashon Oluoch partnerships outscored the Olunga and Kagere partnership. The tables below shows just how prolific this combination was.

Year	Partnership	All Competitions
2015	Michael Olunga / Meddie Kagere	57 (29/23)
1987	Peter Dawo / Sammy Onyango	47 (32/15)
1981	Abbey Nassur / Gedion Hamisi	37 (25/12)
1983	Hesbone Omollo / Gedion Hamisi	33 (18/15)

Year	Partnership	League
1979	George Yoga / Nahashon Oluoch	36 (21/15)
1983	Hesbone Omollo / Gedion Hamisi	33 (18/15)
2015	Michael Olunga / Meddie Kagere	32 (19/13)
1987	Peter Dawo / Sammy Onyango	31 (19/12)
1981	Abbey Nassur / Gedion Hamisi	30 (21/9)

*It is worth noting that in 1979 George Yoga “Best” and Nahashon Oluoch Lule scored 38 goals between them but I do not have the full stats of that season and the rest of the 70s yet.

                              

Kagere and Olunga

                                                 

Gedion Hamisi: Formidable partnership with Hesbone Omollo and Abbey Nassur in the early 80s

Olunga in the League

While I still don’t have the complete records from the 70s, it is well understood that Maurice Ouma “Sonyi” is the club’s leading scorer in a league season with 26 goals in 1976. I have therefore attempted to see where Olunga’s 19 league goals would place him with the other illustrious scorers of the 80s and 90s. He ties Peter Dawo’s 19 league goals in 1987 but apart from Sonyi, who else is up there with him? The following table illustrates.

No of Goals	Player	Year
21	Abbey Nassur	1981
21	George Yoga	1979
19	Michael Olunga	2015
19	Peter Dawo	1987
18	Hesbone Omollo	1983

It is thus safe to say that the club will surely miss the Olunga - Kagere partnership. Hopefully a successful season from Keli, Tuyisenge, Agwanda, George Odhiambo or whoever else will lead the hunt for goals will make the K'Ogalo faithful forget the two.  

Pictures: Olunga and Kagere - Official Gor Mahia Website

Gedion Hamisi - Daily Nation

K’Ogalo To Rob Bankers - They Always Do

K’Ogalo resumes league duties this Sunday against KCB after a successful CECAFA Cup outing. Six points ahead of second placed Ulinzi and with 3 games in hand, Gor Mahia are perfectly placed for a third successive league title, their first 3 successive league titles since the 1983-85 seasons and 15^th overall. The only other teams to have achieved this feat are AFC Leopards (1980-82) and Ulinzi Stars (2003-05). Before celebrating that feat however, we have to dispose what is before us and that’s KCB.

Games against KCB have always been an interesting affair with plenty of goals though last season they did hold Gor to a 0-0 draw but one can argue Frank Nuttal was just getting used to the team. Since 2008, we have played KCB 15 times winning 8 and only losing 4. Three of those losses were in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and the fourth loss was after securing the title in 2013. In the process Gor Mahia has scored 22 goals but also conceded 16 – this points to a possibly a high scoring game this Sunday. Below is  a table on our record against KCB since 2008.

Games	Wins	Draws	Loss	GF	GA	G Diff	Points	Av Pt/G %	% wins
15	8	3	4	22	16	6	27	1.8	53.3

Check out detailed stats against KCB HERE

This season Meddie Kagere has already scored twice but it is worth noting that Rama Salim scored an incredible 7 times against KCB in 3 seasons (two of which he only played for half the season) that included a hatrick and double. Gor Mahia defenders have also always found the back of the net against KCB with a remarkable 6 defenders (including goalkeeper George Odhiambo) finding the back of the net out of the 14 players that have scored against KCB since 2008.

He was the scourge of KCB

Prediction: 3-1 to Gor Mahia with one of its strikers to bag a double

Interesting Fact: Should Olunga score a hatrick he will become the second player after Danny Sserunkuma to score 20 goals (in all competitions) in a season for Gor Mahia since 2008. So far he has scored 12 league goals and 5 in CECAFA Cup for a total of 17 goals. 

Photo courtesy of Supersport.com

A Perfect Start for K'Ogalo - Looking at the Numbers

I was at the City Stadium last Saturday to watch Gor Mahia overcome Ulinzi 2-0, courtesy of goals by the strike partnership of Meddie Kagere and Michael Olunga. As we watched the game, the guy seated next to me commented that it’s been a while since he watched Gor make such a strong start to the league. He commented that K’ogalo always start poorly in the league and grow stronger and therefore this should be an omen to the chasing pack. I decided to go back to the stats and see if his claims hold any water. And indeed it did hold water.  Since 2008, this has been K’Ogalo’s strongest start to the league and at this stage they are 6 points better off than last season and 5 points better off than the 2013 season, previously their best start. It is critical to note that both were title winning seasons. The next question then would be which was their worst start? You don’t need to look far, in 2012 we had only accumulated 5 points after 9 games though a magnificent run in the second half of the season saw us finish second, losing the title by a point on the last day to the brewers.

Also not lost on many is the number of goals that we have scoring during this season. Are we scoring more goals than we did at the start of previous seasons? Well so far we have scored 20 goals after 9 matched, nine goals more than at the same stage last year. Below is graph showing how K’Ogalo have performed after 9 games since 2008 season.

Year	Points	Goals	Wins	Draws	Losses
2008	12	5	3	3	2
2009	7	8	2	1	5
2010	14	7	3	5	1
2011	15	10	4	3	2
2012	5	4	1	4	4
2013	18	8	5	3	1
2014	17	11	5	2	2
2015	23	20	7	2	0

Having a strong start is instrumental in winning a league as it makes up for a possible slump as is often wont to happen in any season. It should be noted that last year between 18^th June and 17^th September Gor picked up only 14 points in 10 (30 points) games, including having two runs of 3 games without picking a win but because of a good first half of the season, there was a healthy gap to cushion it from rivals.

The current unbeaten streak continues at 11 games, the last league loss being the 3-2 loss to Sofapaka at Machakos last year. During this time, we have won 9 games, against Muhoroni Youth (3-1), Ushuru (3-0 and 2-0), Mathare (4-2), Bandari (2-1), Chemelil (3-1), KCB (3-1), City Stars (3-0) and Ulinzi (2-0) while drawing only 2 games, against AFC Leopards (1-1) and Sofapaka (0-0). But has this been our best unbeaten run this year? Of course not, we have 8 games to match the 20 game unbeaten run under coach Logarusic between 28^th April 2012 and 27^th March 2013.

On a side note, Meddie Kagere's double against KCB saw him become the 10th K'Ogalo player to score a brace or more in the league since 2008.

Another super performance from Kagere and Olunga (pix from Official Gor Mahia Website)

In the meanwhile, let the green army savour the moment!