Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane says he was delighted to walk away with a narrow 1-0 win against a difficult Golden Arrows side.

The Brazilians moved up to the summit of the Absa Premiership standings with 22 points after Bangaly Soumahoro’s sixth minute goal proved to be the difference at the Princess Magogo Stadium.

Mosimane believes his side did themselves a huge favour by scoring an early goal, despite playing against the wind in the first half.

“I think we did ourselves a big favour by taking the only chance we had at the time, as early as that time. But we’ve been having good early starts to be honest,” Mosimane told SuperSport TV after the game.

“It was difficult conditions for both sides, but I know it doesn’t look like it from the outside – the wind. It didn’t work in our favour in the first half and it did work in our favour in the second half, it helped us because the ball hangs in the air, we can push our back-four almost at the centre because the ball can’t go there.

“They had their chances in the beginning to use the wind [to their favour] but I think we defended well to be honest. It was a scrappy affair, you can’t have the Baroka performance today on conditions like that. You have to take what’s there.

“Our final pass was not good but we were hanging in there. I didn’t want to make the substitutions [early] because I thought Vila [Sibusiso Vilakazi] was going to score. Percy [Tau] was a little bit emotional today, it’s not his game but he worked hard.

“You have to take it the way it is. We played a difficult team that is good on the break. Sometimes you need to have the facets to play in all the conditions. We were professional and did what we had to do,” he concluded.

Mamelodi Sundowns will be hoping to continue their winning ways when they welcome Maritzburg United to Loftus Versfeld Stadium on Wednesday, with kick-off scheduled for 19:30.

Photo: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix