TUCKER, St James —Montego Bay United (MBU) will be taking orders from Brazilian Nedier Dos Santos when they host Vere United in their Jamaica Premier League (JPL) return round game at Wespow Park on Sunday.

Dos Santos, who coached MBU just after they returned to the Premier League in 2011, replaced Jamaican Donovan Duckie who left the club “by mutual consent” on Monday with the club in ninth place on 20 points from 18 games played.

MBU has gone eight games without a win and with eight games to go before the start of the play-offs, club President Orville Powell cautioned that they were not out of the woods and could still be relegated.

Two weeks after he told the Jamaica Observer West that he was satisfied with Duckie at the helm, Powell said the time was right to make the change, especially with what he said was the deterioration of discipline among the players and the need to start planning for next season.

“A lot of our younger players have left the club as they did not think they fitted into the plans” of the previous coach, Powell said, adding that Duckie’s priority was winning games and he was comfortable with playing the more experienced players.

Powell also said that when some of the senior players were allowed to show up late for training and were still selected to play, it sent a bad signal to the others.

Dos Santos, who will be the second Brazilian coach in the JPL after Clovis DeOlivierra at Chapleton Maroons, said he would be looking to improve match by match.

“My focus now is in the next match after that, the next match and so on till we finish the league,” he said.