By Austin Tyowua, Media Officer Lobi Stars FC
The League Management Company in a bid to make available as many as possible NPFL games come live on television reschedule the 2020/2021 Match Day 9League game between Heartland and Lobi Stars.
The league game which was originally billed to take place in Owerri on 4 PM on Sunday 14th February 2021 has been shifted to 2 PM Monday 15th February 2021 in the adopted Okigwe home ground of Abia Warriors FC Umuahia for the technical convenience of beaming the two games of Heartland vs Lobi and Abia Warriors vs Rangers.
Lobi Stars have to relocate from Owerri on Sunday 14th to Okigwe this afternoon to honor the Match Day 9 fixture as adjusted by the LMC.
The game against Heartland is a very crucial one to Lobi Stars considering the fact that they have run a winless streak in the last four games. Lobi Stars will need to put in all efforts to pull a good result here in Okigwe against the crisis-ridden but hard to crack Heartland.
The pride of Benue have never had it this bad in the last 4 years and will need to regain the confidence of the Makurdi fans back home after leaving them with a sour taste of taking as low as 3 points best of 12.
Though the unpleasant recent outings of Lobi Stars looked like a paradise in the eyes of Heartland who are a distance 16th position from Lobi Stars 10th position after Sunday matchday 9 games were decided. Mondays game is considered a game at hand for Lobi Stars to win and better their position on the log.
The head to the head placement of Heartland and Lobi seem to rate the 2 teams at equal strength on a larger scale has played a total of 21 games winning 8 each and 5 draws in between but with the superiority of Lobi Stars in the last 5 games.
In the last 5 NPFL games between the two clubs, Lobi Stars won 4, leaving Heartland with only 1 win thus:
15/03/2020 NPFL Heartland
2 – 0 Lobi Stars
20/11/2019 NPFL Lobi Stars
3 – 0 Heartland
Sun 04/03/2018 NPFL Heartland
0 – 1 Lobi Stars
03/07/2016 NPFL Lobi Stars
2 – 0 Heartland
27/07/2014 NPFL Lobi Stars
2 – 1 Heartland
Two NPFL games to be decided in Okigwe on Monday 15th February, 2021 between Heartland vs Lobi Stars and the Oriental derby of Abia Warriors vs Rangers are to be beamed live on NTA and online on NPFL.tv by 2PM and 4PM respectively still behind closed doors.