Red-faced Ertugral apologises for his players' poor showing after Pirates' drab draw with City

Muhsin Ertugral was embarrassed by the football Orlando Pirates produced in their flat 0-0 Premier Soccer League draw against Cape Town City at Orlando Stadium on Tuesday night‚ and apologised to the Bucs fans for it.

The Pirates coach admitted most of his decisions did not work out as Bucs dropped their first two points of the season‚ with City unlucky not to win having missed a string of chances.

“I’m very personally disappointed about the type of football we dished out. It didn’t look like it was a team that we were training with every day in patterns‚ organisational forms and so on‚” Ertugral said afterwards.

“I need to understand the players and they need to understand me. It’s the coach who’s in charge‚ and I can’t be happy.

“The decisions that we made – putting on Thamsanqa Gabuza late and playing with two strikers‚ everything that we did – didn’t work.

“It was only in the 15 minutes at the end of the first half where we really started to play.

“But the question is very much that: you play at home – how many saves did our goalkeeper make‚ and how many did theirs? There you can see it’s a problem.

“The second part for me is that in the second half we took Issa Sarr out and put an attacking midfielder in. According to the stats I received‚ we had 70% possession. But the entries in the last third were not there.

“Everything that the coach did didn’t work out. So give it to me.

Ertugral paused then added: “I feel sorry for the fans.

“They come in their numbers and then for us to play that kind of football is really embarrassing for me. I must apologise.”

Defensive midfield is becoming an early area where Pirates appear to have minor issues.

Ertugral started the season with new signing Abbubaker Mobara there‚ but that did not quite work out‚ and the former Ajax Cape Town man has been moved to right-back.

The coach had Issa Sarr there in the first half on Tuesday‚ and then substituted the Senegalese with winger Memela‚ with Mpho Makola dropping into defensive midfield.

“In the first half there were three situations where Issa gave the ball away with square passes in front of the defensive line‚” Ertugral said.

“And I told the boys that those four players City had in attack were my players from last season . They will steal balls.

“They watch your body language. If your leg is in it’s very clear you will put the ball inside – and they will win it. That was one of our successes last season.

Ertugral said losing deep striker Gift Motupa to injury in the seventh minute disrupted the angles his side had planned to attack City with.

“Even if it sounds like an excuse‚ Gift was very important for us.

“Tendai Ndoro always makes half-left runs‚ and the centreback would always be on our striker.

“So we prepared for Gift to make diagonal runs into the centre‚ to have one-against-one situations in the middle.

“We lost Gift and Bernard Morrison came in. Morrison is a ball-player – when he has the ball something happens. But when he loses the ball – I’m going to lose some more hairs about that.

“He was instructed to be on Mpho Matsi in their buildups. He was always 20 metres away from him. And I think you could see how many times I told him we needed him to be there.

“We had to move him to the side‚ so then we put Mpho Makola in central midfield.

“It was always something else coming up – you needed to take this decision‚ then something else came‚ then another decision‚ then something else.”

City’s attacking line consists mostly of the players from Aces – whose franchise the new Cape side bought – who Ertugral guided to fourth place last season.