‘I was not impressed’: Mngqithi admits Sundowns deserved to lose to Polokwane

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi gave a brutally honest assessment of his team’s performance in their first Betway Premiership defeat of the season against Polokwane City, saying he was “not impressed” with many aspects.

He was unhappy with his team’s speed of play, chance-creation and decision-making in their 1-0 defeat at Old Peter Mokaba Stadium on Sunday. He said that a line-up that managed to score five goals past Lamontville Golden Arrows in their home league match on October 19 could barely threaten City meant “we should be worried”.

Mngqithi has been rotating players and made numerous changes to the side that met Arrows as Sundowns beat Royal AM 2-1 in Durban on Wednesday, returning to that previous line-up against Polokwane.

Mngqithi was disappointed his team seemed to have regressed from the strides made in an in-form period where the Brazilians won their previous seven games in all competitions, scoring 23 goals.

Downs’ coach gave credit to coach Phuti Mohafe’s tough Polokwane, who went to fourth place from the result.

“I must say this: this was tough for the team. In the first half they [City] were strong — I must give it to them, we did not do much,” Mngqithi said.

“Even when we got into the final third several times we did not even get a shot at goal because of those final decisions, final mistakes; the ball getting lost from ‘Tash’ [Tashreeq Matthews], getting lost from ‘Ike’ [Iqraam Rayners] and getting lost from [Siyabonga] Mabena.

“Those situations would result in counterattacks, which I think we dealt with well.

“In the second half there were scary moments where they really looked strong.

“It was unfortunate we never got something, even when we got one of the biggest chances when [Asekho] Tiwani played that ball to Iqraam where you would expect him to receive and finish, but on the day it was not to be.

“We never had much control of the game. In the second half we improved but even then we had a lot of counterattacks against us. Our defence was questionable in some moments.

“The speed of the game was slow. We did not manage to play the way one would like to play where we moved the ball faster and gave ourselves a chance to dominate the match and shift a team that works hard.

“We must give them credit — they work hard. Even if you have moments to get behind them, if you are not fast enough, by the time you try to play the ball inside everybody [in City] is behind the ball and you are only left with [Hlayisi] Chauke and [Oswin] Appollis up front.

“We should congratulate them — they played well and deserved to win.”

It was Sundowns’ second meeting against Polokwane this season — the Brazilians needed extra time to beat City 1-0 in their MTN8 quarterfinal in their first match of the season. Mngqithi said Downs knew to expect another tough outing in Limpopo.

“They are a team that is stingy in giving away goals. We tried to move them but even in moments where we thought we should get something — [Sphelele] Mkhulise’s shot at the end, maybe it should have been; Iqraam, where he could not even take a shot; I don’t know what happened, maybe the wind took the ball.

“I was not impressed. I was not impressed with the speed of play, I was not impressed with our chance creation, I was not impressed with our decision-making in the final third.

“It’s areas we need to work hard on to try to get ourselves back because we thought we had improved tremendously in that regard.

“This is the team that scored five goals past Arrows, and if today [Sunday] they struggled to even have a shot at goal then we should be worried.”

Sundowns have little time to rest as they meet Cape Town City in their next league game at Loftus Versfeld on Wednesday (7.30pm).