EC Bees coach Chippa Njedu expects their last game of the first round in ABC Motsepe League 2017-18 season to be tough.
Last season’s winners, “the Crazy Gang”, will go against the struggling Lion City at the NU2 Stadium, in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth today.
“This will be a very difficult game and the record speaks for itself. We’ve always played draws with City and their current position will give them fighting spirit. They won’t want to close with a loss, but we are hoping our boys will have the necessary confidence as we are coming out of a well-deserved win.”
Njedu said he might have to make a few changes as he needed to rest the players who beat Future Tigers 3-2 at the weekend.
“For this game I need fresh legs, so I’ll make a couple of changes on the field, but at least that win was a confidence booster for the team.”
The Bees mentor said he wanted to ensure that in today’s game against the Port Elizabeth-based outfit his charges avoid conceding soft goals.
“Our opponents need to work for their goals and Tigers didn’t have to. Their first goal came when we were attacking and they managed to intercept the ball – by that time, most of our players were already upfront, which was a lack of communication on our side.
“We also need to avoid dead balls in our turf because Tigers also took a chance when they scored a dead ball, and those are some of the things we need to look at carefully against Lion City.”
The win over Tigers saw the Bhisho-based outfit climb to third spot with 24 points, with Lion City 13th with 10 points after losing 1-0 to second-placed PE Stars.
“If we win this game we’re going to be number two, and that’s exactly what we want as we don’t want to be at the summit of the log-standings. I’m saying this because we are not competing and when we eventually compete, it will happen on its own.”
Njedu said the most important thing was to beat every team they play and to not rely on other teams to do the hard work on their behalf.
“The teams in the relegation zone are the most dangerous ones and they always bring their A-game when they play against Bees, so we need to be on our toes and keep the momentum going into the second round.”
Chippa fears worst against deadly Lion
Last season’s winners, “the Crazy Gang”, will go against the struggling Lion City at the NU2 Stadium, in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth today.
“This will be a very difficult game and the record speaks for itself. We’ve always played draws with City and their current position will give them fighting spirit. They won’t want to close with a loss, but we are hoping our boys will have the necessary confidence as we are coming out of a well-deserved win.”
Njedu said he might have to make a few changes as he needed to rest the players who beat Future Tigers 3-2 at the weekend.
“For this game I need fresh legs, so I’ll make a couple of changes on the field, but at least that win was a confidence booster for the team.”
The Bees mentor said he wanted to ensure that in today’s game against the Port Elizabeth-based outfit his charges avoid conceding soft goals.
“Our opponents need to work for their goals and Tigers didn’t have to. Their first goal came when we were attacking and they managed to intercept the ball – by that time, most of our players were already upfront, which was a lack of communication on our side.
“We also need to avoid dead balls in our turf because Tigers also took a chance when they scored a dead ball, and those are some of the things we need to look at carefully against Lion City.”
The win over Tigers saw the Bhisho-based outfit climb to third spot with 24 points, with Lion City 13th with 10 points after losing 1-0 to second-placed PE Stars.
“If we win this game we’re going to be number two, and that’s exactly what we want as we don’t want to be at the summit of the log-standings. I’m saying this because we are not competing and when we eventually compete, it will happen on its own.”
Njedu said the most important thing was to beat every team they play and to not rely on other teams to do the hard work on their behalf.
“The teams in the relegation zone are the most dangerous ones and they always bring their A-game when they play against Bees, so we need to be on our toes and keep the momentum going into the second round.”
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