Cape Town Spurs slumped to a sixth consecutive defeat, losing 2-1 to Golden Arrows on Tuesday to equal an unwanted PSL record for the worst-ever start to a DStv Premiership league campaign.
The newly-promoted club matched a record from 24 years ago when Umtata Bushbucks also began their campaign with six losses.
Spurs are still some way off the record for the most consecutive defeats, which is held by defunct Cape Town club, Mother City, who lost 13 games in a row in 1999/2000 – Mother City also hold the second place record as in the same season they also lost 10 games in a row in another run.
The most recent poor run was just last season, when Richards Bay lost seven games in row.
On Tuesday things looked up at one point when Spurs’ top scorer from last season Ashley Cupido gave them the lead, netting his first in the DStv Premiership.
But two second-half goals from substitute Lungelo Nguse meant another defeat for Shaun Bartlett’s team.
It is a situation the former Bafana Bafana striker has never been experienced in his 30+ years in football as a player or coach.
“It’s the first time for me as a coach, or as a player,” a disappointed Bartlett said after the game.
“It’s probably obviously something that is very difficult to grasp, in the sense where I think, like I’ve said, out of the six games, five of the games, you probably didn’t deserve to get the result you ended up with.
“And again, maybe we didn’t work hard enough in order to get the result because when were 1-0 up, we could have buried the game with a little bit more forward-thinking and aggression and energy. And we tended to slow down the pace of the game.
“And I think that’s sometimes to our detriment because we’ve got a lot of speed in our team. A lot of players with skilful abilities. The only thing that’s missing is the final product.”
Bartlett lamented his team’s consistency and said it was frustrating to concede both goals from situations that they had been prepared for.
“You’ve got to be consistent, you can’t just have a couple of spells, three, four, five minutes, and suddenly you have a lapse of concentration, and then you allow them back in the game,” Bartlett added.
“I think when we drop our intensity, that’s when they come back into the game, and they get more confidence. And then they obviously put the ball in the box for Nguse, which we knew they’re going to bring.
“We keep saying maybe we shouldn’t show the players the analysis, because we show them what they’re going to do, who the danger players are, and every time it materialises in a match. And I think those are again, the issues that we keep trying to address.
“But ja, it’s very difficult to see a light at the end of the tunnel, besides the fact obviously, the amount of games that’s left.”
