Orlando Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro has explained he was unhappy with his side’s lack of control despite beating Royal AM 4-2 on Tuesday evening.
The Buccaneers raced to a 3-0 lead in the first half, thanks to a brace by Zakhele Lepasa and a superb strike by Monnapule Saleng.
It lead John Maduka to make four substitutes after 40 minutes, with his side pulling one back before the break.
The second half remained open, with Pirates failing to add more goals onto the scoreline, leading to Royal AM pulling another back after a mistake by goalkeeper Sipho Chaine in the 88th minute, while Bandile Shandu made it 4-2 in injury-time.
After the match, Riveiro explained that he wasn’t happy with the open game in the second half.
“I think we should’ve finished the game early, we had many, many opportunities to finish the opponents’ hopes,” SuperSport TV.
“But we keep the game open, almost until the last minute. A bit crazy the second half, I didn’t like it.
“We should’ve controlled the game much better with a 3-1 advantage but we have to learn also from these games.
“It happens many times in this league in the second half that the game is broken and is going side to side, we need to impose our tempo in that moment. Today, we had the opportunity to do it and we missed a lot of opportunities to score the fourth one and finish the game.
“A good reaction of our opponents as well after the 3-0, so they can be proud of their performance also today.”
Riveiro also explained that he thought his side played better in their 1-0 defeat at Stellenbosch FC on Saturday but proved to be more clinical on Tuesday.
“To be honest I think we played much better two days ago than we did today,”
“But today we were more accurate in the opportunities that we create, one penalty, one transition and one ball behind the line… but we were not really in control or not as much as I would like.”
