Three teams, Azam Tigers, Civo United and Mighty Wanderers will be out gunning for the third place slot currently held by Civo United.

The Lilongwe-based Civo travel to Nchalo today to meet Tigers at Kalulu Stadium, the venue where the Kau Kaus beat fellow Capital City giants Blue Eagles last week.

Civo have 22 points, one ahead of Tigers while Wanderers, who face unpredictable Blantyre United at Balaka Stadium, have 20 points.

Should Civo and Tigers come out with a barren draw and Wanderers beat Bvumbwe Research, the Nomads might take over the third place slot on goal difference as they would tie on 23 points with Civo.

But if Tigers win, then they will claim the spot outright as they will amass 24 points.

It's a tricky fixture for Wanderers since it would be an emotional one following what the TNM Super League rookies did by booting the giants out of the Presidential Cup.

There are only four TNM Super League games this weekend because of the changes in fixtures because of the Presidential Cup final that involves Big Bullets and Moyale Brracks at Kamuzu Stadium.

In the initial fixtures that Sulom distributed last week, Bullets were supposed to travel to Mzuzu to meet Moyale and Kabwafu the following day but that has now been shifted to the last week of the first round.

Silver Strikers lead the table with 28 points, one ahead of Red Lions.

However, Silver have just one game left of the first round while Red Lions have three more.

Should Red Lions, who are unbeaten in the TNM Super League, win all remaining three, they will amass 36 points while Silver will have 34.

Civo United will only manage 25 if they beat Azam Tigers in their last first round match on Saturday.

Then if Wanderers beat Bvumbwe on Saturday and Escom United on September 9, they will finally take over the third place.

Team of the moment are Red Lions following their unbeaten run in which they won eight and drew three and they set another record by being the first team to come out of Lilongwe with full points when they beat Civo 2-0 and Kamuzu Barracks 1-0 to draw closer to the top.

The Zomba-based Red Lions have also a perfect away record having won all of their five away games.

Surprise team is last season's runnersup Escom United, who are at the 15-team league with eight points. They are remaining with three games left against Epac next week, Mafco on September 8 and will wrap up the first round with Mighty Wanderers the following day.

Escom are also yet to win at home and in their loss to Bullets, the ones who inflicted the damage were two players they embarrassingly offloaded at the start of the season, Heston Munthali and Chimango Kaira.

They made a surprise claim over the week when they demanded that the two players should go back to the team.

Meanwhile, according to statistics provided by Sulom, 237 goals have been scored so far and most of them have come from Silver Strikers, who have notched 30.

Silver also won all their seven games played at home. Big Bullets have used home ground advantage as well in all four games.

Blue Eagles and Bvumbwe have conceded the most goals — 21 each. Boniface Kaulesi was awarded the player of the month award for July.