Mamelodi Sundowns Co-Head Coach Manqoba Mngqithi was delighted for the three goalscorers in their 3-1 win over Tshakhuma, Rivaldo Coetzee, Sibusiso Vilakazi and particularly Sphelele Mkhulise.
Mngqithi says that before the game he had told Mkhulise that he thought it was his day to score a goal.
He was pleased as well for Coetzee, who scored his first goal for Sundowns, and says this is an area that the defender-turned-midfielder can improve on.
Mngqithi was also delighted for Vilakazi, who has been sidelined for a long time through injury, and marked his comeback with a goal.
Sundowns moved six points clear at the top of the DStv Premiership with the win.
“Ja, it’s encouraging to see him Mkhulise growing in leaps and bounds,” Mngqithi said after the win.
“The boy works very hard. The boy is very industrious, the boy is strong defensively. He assists the team offensively. But we’ve always complained that he is not scoring enough.”
“And surprisingly, today, I went to him and I said, ‘Today is your day to score a goal’. And when he scored, I was very excited, because I just spoken to him to say, ‘today is your day. I want to see your goal today.’ And he rewarded us with that.”
“So it is always encouraging when you see players like Pitso performing the way they are performing. Because the boys is working hard, he is very focused, he’s a good professional, you must reward such such players, because there are no longer too many highly talented players, who’ve got very clean lifestyles, who are focused in their performances, work very hard week in and week out, and you’re building something that you know, is going to yield something for you, because if the player is focused, you can see he’s got big ambitions for the future.”
“And also very encouraged to see Villa coming back and coming back with a goal and Riva scoring that goal in the dying stages of the first half. Very encouraged to see our midfielders starting to to get the goals because what counts the most is when you’ve got a team that can get goals from different angles, so that it’s very difficult for opponents to know where the goals are going to come. And it was impressive for Vila to score.”
“It was impressive for for Riva to go in there and score. And we are hoping that it has opened that space for Riva, because I always complain to him, as a midfielder we need to tick a little bit more boxes in his assists, in his shots at goals, in his final combination plays and box entries, and when he scores, you know that maybe it can be ignited and he might start maybe looking for these opportunities from time to time.”
