Despite winning 2-0, Mamelodi Sundowns co-head coach Rulani Mokwena was frustrated with his team’s performance against a ten-man Chippa United at Loftus Stadium on Monday evening.
Masandawana expanded their lead on the table after they secured a hard-fought win at home in the first match of the 2021/2022 campaign second round.
Mokwena feels that while they did enough to win, he felt it was one of the least impressive performances by the team during his tenure as co-head coach.
“Ja, well, we knew it was gonna be difficult, but maybe not this difficult,” Mokwena told SuperSport after the game.
“Congratulations to the team, everyone involved at the club for the win.
“But I think ever since I’ve been here, this is probably not one of the best performances for us.
“The personality of the team was something that we couldn’t recognise.
“Tactically, we were okay. But we struggled to find the extra man and the free man and you can’t do that when you’re rushing, and sometimes we rushed the play.
“We want to always try to provoke the next line to defend us or to defend the ball, but we couldn’t get that today.
“Maybe also because of the defensive organisation and the discipline of Chippa, and you’ve got to give them credit for that.
“We knew how difficult they are. We spoke about their physicality and you saw their fight in the duels. We spoke about Eva Nga and his speed in relation to transitions and you could see some of the chances.
“But ja, we gave a lot of opportunities away, and we don’t want to be a team that gives the opponent’s a lot of chances.
“But we did that today, and it had to do with how we used the ball and how we structured ourselves when we were in possession.”
