To see Golden Arrows crush Swallows FC 4-0 in the league match didn’t come as a surprise to co-coach Vusumuzi Vilakazi, who said his players are “coachable” and “listen to instructions well”.
Arrows produced one of the standout performances of the 2022/23 so far, thumping the Dube Birds at Princess Magogo Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
It was a far contrast to the side that lost the first two league matches of the season to Richards Bay and Sekhukhune United respectively to drop the DStv Premiership table with zero points.
Losing those matches sent alarm bells ringing to the club, similar to when they had that horrible start in the 2013/14 season and were relegated to the Motsepe Foundation Championship.
However, things are looking up for Arrows this campaign. Following their win over Swallows, they moved to fifth on the table with 11 points after eight matches. In the last five matches, they have won three, lost just once (against defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns) and drawn the other.
Those stats are only bettered by log leaders Sundowns, who have won four and lost once in their last five matches, with Vilakazi expressing his happiness over the special win.
“It makes things easy when you have players who are taking instructions on board and players who are coachable,” said Vilakazi.
“We always create opportunities but fail to score and against Swallows it happened. The plus side was that we kept a clean sheet.
“Against Sundowns, our defensive structure was spot on and that led to us conceding an own goal, and they didn’t score from open play.”
Vilakazi, who is co-coaching with Mabhuti Khenyeza, to win with such a margin, they have surpassed previous coaches such as Serame Letsoaka, Clinton Larsen, Steve Komphela and Mandla Ncikazi.
However, they couldn’t match that of their former coach Manqoba Mngqithi, who made history at the club when it comes to record win for Arrows in the PSL history when they crushed Platinum Stars 6-0 on 31 August 2009.
Interestingly, Vilakazi was part of that game, replacing Philani Shange who was one of the scorers in that match. Mngqithi also led Arrows to the 6-0 win over Ajax Cape Town in the MTN8 final also in the same year.
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“Definitely, I enjoyed this victory,” added Vilakazi.
“In the team talk, I said to them, there’s a thin line between teams sitting at the bottom and teams sitting at the top. Once you lose one or two games, you are at the bottom half.
“Once you win one or two matches, you are on top, and that is the difficult part of this season of not knowing who is going to be in the relegation zone and who is going to win the league.
“I think it’s very interesting.”
Story by Robin-Duke Madlala (@duke_robin).
