Stewart ... we have to shop

Rivoli United, despite sporting the league's leading goalscorer, Devon Hodges, still find them-selves in the bottom half of the Digicel Premier League standings following a 0-1 loss at Harbour View on Sunday night.

Hodges has scored 12 of his team's 19 goals but they have conceded 22, which sees them lying in ninth position on 17 points, just two from the bottom.

Their coach, Bradley Stewart, believes that given their close proximity to the foot the table they will have to shop in the January transfer market.

Tight situation

"We have to shop based on where we are. We are in a tight situation given how close the teams at the bottom of the league are at the moment," said Stewart.

"Given there is another round, and we hope to continue to improve, we are not going to press crazy signals at the moment. We think we are a decent team and we just need to iron out some of the kinks that we have," he added.

The Spanish Town team, which is still without an away win this season, suffered their seventh defeat - to go with their eight draws and three wins, when they were edged at the Harbour View Mini Stadium.

The games' lone goal was scored by André Fagan in 15th minute.

The win ensured that Harbour View will spend Christmas atop the standings on 36 points.

Stewart believes that his defence's slow reaction is what led to the goal and intends to purchase players who can react quickly.

"Like today's (Sunday) game, I thought that defensively we didn't react fast enough. Probably we have to look for players that have natural motor reaction as oppose to players that you think have talent and good ball skills but rather a defender that is just anxious to win the ball at all times," Stewart said.

"We need to be shopping. We have two players who are out who are regular starters, so we need to look some more to see how we can strengthen, particularly our defense," he added.

Rivoli will now turn their attention to their next game on Sunday against St Georges, in which Stewart hopes they will do better.

"Our next game is (against) St Georges at home. The last time we played them I thought we had a good game but we lost the game 1-0. This time we are at home and obviously, we would expect to do better than we did the last time."

Happy for victory

Harbour View's coach, Donovan Hayles, was very happy that his team was able to secure their third home win.

"Our approach was to be business-like. We know Rivoli is a very good team and what we wanted to do in particular was that when they have their moments we stay sturdy in defence; be calm and patient, and we did that," said Hayles.

"One would like to try and win games more comfortably. But a win at home is very rare so we are very happy for it," he added.