Tadious Manyepo

Zimpapers Sports Hub

LYNOTH CHIKUHWA says he wants to shrug off the hangover ghost that clung onto him last year following an outstanding 2024 Premier Soccer League season.

So, much was expected from the 31-year-old striker when he crossed the floor from Highlanders to Scottland early in 2025, given the beautiful story he had written at Bosso.

After winning the Golden Boot with 17 goals while also getting the Soccer Star of the Year Runner-up accolade in 2024, Chikuhwa was on every club’s wish list.

It was the cash-rich Mabvuku club that flexed their muscle to land his signature.

Yet he went on to disappoint thanks to the limited game time he got under coach Tonderai Ndiraya.

The situation was so bad that Chikuhwa started not more than twice, and he had to be eventually loaned out to Chicken Inn during the mid-season transfer window.

Although he appeared to be getting his groove back in familiar Bulawayo environs, especially towards the end of the year, it was too little, too late for him.

With one more year on his contract still running at Scottland, he was supposed to revert to being but the parties decided to mutually terminate the agreement.

Chikuhwa has since penned a 12-month deal with the Gamecocks, which he has an option to extend and the forward is optimistic he will be able to turnaround his landscape.

“I didn’t get to really settle at Scottland last year. I was expecting to flourish there, but then in football not all things go according to plan,” said Chikuhwa.

“It’s not like there was something bad at the team but it was just like things failed to work out for me. I had all the support from both the technical team and my teammates but things just didn’t work out well for me.

“When I moved to Chicken Inn things improved a bit but I managed to score only three goals. That was because I had to also take a bit of time to settle and that the team was under pressure to survive contributed to the poor showing because we knew as players that if the club went down, we were going to taint our names.”

Interestingly, Chikuhwa is reuniting with Ndiraya, who is now the Chicken Inn coach just seven months after the latter sent him on loan.

But that isn’t a cause for concern for the forward who regards Ndiraya as one of the best coaches he has worked with.

“When I moved from Scottland, it wasn’t because we had a poor working relationship with the coach.

It was because I never really got to settle at Scottland.

“You know such things are to be expected in football,” added Chikuhwa.

“I am ready to put in the work under a coach who already knows my potential and areas where I need to improve.

“I am in a familiar environment and my wish is to reinvigorate myself and try to crawl back to the form that I was when I was at Highlanders in 2024.”