After suffering the disappointment of an early cup exit, Steve Barker says that Stellenbosch’s game against Swallows today is a key game for the fifth-placed DStv Premiership team.
Stellenbosch had started the week in third place, but after Tuesday’s results Kaizer Chiefs and Royal AM moved ahead of them on goal difference.
Stellenbosch lost 1-0 to Baroka last Friday, ending Barker’s hopes that Stellies could have a good cup run.
“We had hoped to have a good cup run this year, but unfortunately, the cup competition has eluded us again” Barker told the club’s media department.
“So ja, the performance was sufficient enough, in my opinion, to have got a better result than we did. However, in football, you’ve got to put the ball in the back of the net, which we failed to do.
“Had numerous decent opportunities to do so, so ja, when you don’t do that, then obviously you open yourself up for the opposition to get a goal and sneak the game from you, which happened, the only really chance that they had in the whole game, unfortunately, it was from our own sort of error.
“So ja, there were a lot of positives to take from the game, but it doesn’t take away the fact that I’m highly disappointed, I was really expecting and hoping for a good cup run, but it’s now over.”
Barker says Swallows at the Danie Craven Stadium, is a key game for his team, as a victory would take them past the 30 point mark.
“We’ve got a short turnaround ,important for us to refocus our energies on the league, which is our bread and butter. And we’ve managed to get ourselves into a strong position on the log table,” Barker continued.
“But it’s important that now we finish the remainder of the league really positively, confidently, with belief that we can maintain the sort of position that we are in. But we do understand that we have to make sure that we start creating and scoring more of our chances.
“Having only scored 18 goals in 18 matches, we need to be doing better than that, so it’s a big focus for us to improve on. I was impressed with the two debutants, Sibonginseni Mthethwa as well as Juan Ortiz. And I think they can only continue to add value.
“But ja, we were looking forward to the Swallows match. There’s no easy game in the PSL we all know that but we need to pitch, we need to put in a big performance.
“It’s a key game for us, we would like to surpass the 30 mark on Wednesday and still have 11 matches to play points for, so a key game for us.”
