KINGSTON, Jamaica — Cavalier FC Technical Director Rudolph Speid believes that Dwayne Atkinson’s days are numbered at the club.

Despite not scoring, Atkinson was at the heart of everything good for Cavalier in their season opener in the Jamaica Premier League Monday night.

The result was not favourable for Cavalier as they gave up a one goal lead, to go down 1-2 to host Arnett Gardens, but the performance of Atkinson once again caught the eye as the former Manning Cup winner sparkled on the night in the “Jungle”.

Atkinson troubled the Arnett Gardens defenders all night and could quite easily have put his name on the score sheet more than once, however it was not to be for the diminutive striker.

Speid thought that the performance of his number 10 merited more and is expecting things to happen for him internationally sometime soon.

“This should be Dwayne Atkinson’s last season at Cavalier. He is really in top form now. He is really a handful. It’s just a matter of time before he gets his reward with goals, and I hope this is his last season playing with Cavalier,” he admitted.

Whilst not stating that there were offers on the table for Atkinson at this time, Speid believes that the performances which pre-date even last season, when he was particularly dazzling in the black and white of the club, set him up for a big move in the near future.

“There is always interest but the way he is playing…last year he actually scored 10 goals, a lot of them were stunners. So, if he continues in that vein…and he looks like he is going to pick up where he left off (last season), I think he has a bright future.”

Atkinson is now one of the senior players at the club despite being relatively young, and Speid thinks that he has matured nicely.

“I think he has (matured). Our team lost 12 players from the squad that played last year, so definitely you can see that he has taken up a lot of responsibility on his head.”

Cavalier have probably the youngest squad in the league and Speid believes that may have been their Achilles heel on Monday.

“I thought we were a little bit undisciplined because we didn’t get all three points or even one, but it’s a work in progress. The team’s average age is 19 and I am pleased.”

He did have at least one major cause for concern however as his captain Kyle Ming saw red and will now have to sit out at least the next two games.

“It is a big problem for us. Our squad is very young. Only eight of the players who started today had experience of more than five premier league games so losing him is going to be a big loss for us because he has played 96 games for us.”

The Cavalier top man is hoping that the rest of the squad will respond to the adversity of playing without their leader and still be able to get a good result in their next match.

“We just hope that we will be able to keep our system intact and play the same way we played today and hope we have a positive result the next game,” he concluded.