TUCKER, St James — One game at a time is how new Montego Bay United (MBU) Coach Nedier Dos Santos says he will be approaching the remainder of the Jamaica Premier League season after taking over the former champions on Tuesday.

Dos Santos, who is returning to Jamaica and to MBU after a long lay off, replaced Donovan Duckie as the coach of the team that sits ninth on 20 points from 18 games.

As club President Orville Powell pointed out to the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday, MBU’s position in the standing is a worrying thing.

“We cannot be comfortable, if you check the maths, we are not safe yet and we need to start winning games,” he said.

Dos Santos, who arrived in the island over the weekend and had his first training session with the team Tuesday morning, said: “My focus now is in the next match, after that, the next match and so on till we finish the league.”

MBU are coming off a come-from-behind 1-1 draw with JPL leaders Arnett Gardens on Sunday, their third-straight draw. They are winless in their last eight matches, and Dos Santos said he saw some of the last game on television.

“I think they got a good result. I mean, playing Arnett, which is one of the top teams on the table away. Yes, but I feel we have some improvements,” he told the Observer. “I will try to implement my way, my style of football, which is not better or worse than style of any other coach, it’s just the way I think football, so I think that’s the way to move forward and we have a lot of work to do.”

The work, he said, will be tough.

“Unfortunately, where we are in the middle [of the tables] almost end of the season, which we have to change the wheel with the car moving,” Dos Santos noted.

He is not a stranger to the league however, leading MBU to a mid-season win in his previous stint.

“I love Jamaica. First of all, I love the people, especially MoBay people and western Jamaica people. I’m feel at home; here is very nice,” he said.

He will be the second Brazilian coach in the league, joining Clovis De Oliviera who also took over mid-season at Chapleton Maroons.

“He is my friend, my good friend, he is a very good coach, and is a very good [man].”

Dos Santos will have at least one player in the squad who he coached the last time he was in charge at MBU in Allan Ottey, the team’s leading scorer.

“I know him well, from he was a schoolboy, actually. I was his first coach at MBU. Always a big potential, a very good player, but it’s important to see all the players here. They will all start from scratch, everybody. He has to show me that he deserves to be on the starting 11, and from that on, we will go forward,” Dos Santos ended.

MBU will face Vere United at home today.