Johannesburg – Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Rulani Mokwena says that Chippa United will be their toughest opponent as the two sides prepare to battle it out in the much-anticipated DStv Premiership showdown tie on Monday.
This comes as the PSL championship campaign resumes tomorrow following a six-week break due to the African Cup of Nations in Cameroon and the January player transfer window period that ended last Monday.
The ever-confident Mokwena said league-tittle holders Masandawana will not make the mistake of taking the struggling Chippa United lightly.
The Chilli Boys were knocked out of the Nedbank Cup at the hands of University of Pretoria’s AmaTuks, whereby the Gqeberha, Eastern Cape-side was walloped 2-0 by second division, Pretoria-based side on Saturday.
“I think the influence of Gavin Hunt cannot be taken out, it has impacted the club,” said Mokwena.
“Because if you look at their last matches even yesterday against Tuks, they were unfortunate and it is clear that the team’s style of play is not changing, the influence of Hunt has hampered the team to commit plenty of mistakes.
“However, I think I need to commend the work done by Kurt Lentjies, he is really fantastic, they still kept their strength, physicality and they looked more composed on the ball.
“It’s a team that seems to be going into another level, where they don’t just kick the ball forward, they have patterns in their play, they looked better organised, we really have to work hard to get the ball from them,” Mokwena explained
“It should be an interesting game that we will be looking forward to, of course, coming from two past games where we had to travel, it helped us to recover and be prepared for upcoming matches.”
Mokwena said Downs will go full steam to claim more points as the current league log leaders have now garnered 44 points and are sitting pretty at the top of the Premiership log table.
Meanwhile, there was another upset on Saturday night when DStv Premiership side Golden Arrows were humiliated by the second-tier team Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila as they were booted out of the Nedbank Cup Last 32 round via a 7-6 in penalty shootout loss.
Abafana Bes’thende coach Lehlohonolo Seema said that his boys looked positive throughout the match however luck was not on their side.
“Yeah, it is one of those games where we dominated but one thing we failed to do was score and in football if you don’t score goals, there’s no way you will win the match,” said Seema.
“There’s not much we can do except to say that we feel bad for the boys, unlucky for them, we were not able to win the match after we played so well, however it is a lesson for us that if we don’t score goals, you won’t win matches, once the game ends in penalties is like a lottery.”
He said the team will now shift their focus to the league as they bid to finish in a better position at the end of the season.
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