After beating Chippa United on Monday, Mamelodi Sundowns Co-Head Coach Manqoba Mngqithi says he was pleased to get a win in a game that he knew would be a tough one at this stage of the season.
The DStv Premiership leaders won 2-1 on Monday, and Mngqithi says they should’ve wrapped the game up in the first half, but with a big Nedbank Cup quarter-final against Orlando Pirates coming up, he was pleased to get the result and move on.
“Ja, I mean, it’s always going to be a tough one at this stage of the season, we knew this commotion of not having a coach and all that, is making things even more difficult for us to even know what they might come up with, in terms of profiling them,” Mngqithi said after the game.
“But fortunately, our analysts did a very good job. The game came out the way we wanted. And all the matches we watched for them came out that way.”
“And if we’re a little bit shrewd, I think first half, we could have wrapped this game, four goals easy. We had three one against one situations with the goalkeeper, which I think could have easily given us the game.”
“And at halftime, all the coaches were livid because when you miss such chances and you’re leading one nil, the game always turns out differently. And look at what just happened. We missed a big chance on the opposite end, and immediately, there is a transition on the opposite end and they score.”
“But one is encouraged with the coming back of Aubrey Modiba is really showing signs that now he is coming of age. It was a bit unfortunate for Vila not to get a chance, for Skipper not to get a chance, because the truth of the matter is thy played some very good performances. And those performances have brought them into the 18 man squad.”
“And one is just encouraged by the fact that we have won another very critical match in a very critical time of the season.”
“Because these away matches at this time of the season, when you’ve got a big match coming, they are always difficult for players to focus on the Chippa game, when they know that they’ve got a Pirates game after that.”
“But one is encouraged that at least we gave a good fight, we created a lot of good chances. But we I think we made the game a little bit difficult for ourselves.”
