Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Rulani Mokwena was not entirely pleased with his side’s performance despite their 2-0 win over Chippa United, with the Downs co-coach admitting he couldn’t recognise the personality of his side.
An own goal from Sandile Mthethwa and a second-half strike from Teboho Mokoena was enough to guide the Brazilians to the three points against the Chilli Boys, taking them 17 points clear at the top of the table.
Despite the comfortable win and extending their lead, Mokwena was not pleased with the display.
“We knew it was going to be difficult but not this difficult. Congratulations to the team, everyone involved at the club for the win but ever since I’ve been here, this is probably not one of the best performances from us,” Mokwena told SuperSport TV after the game.
“The personality of the team was something we couldn’t recognise, tactically we were OK but we struggled to find the extra man, you can’t do that when you’re rushing and sometimes we rushed the play.
“We want to always provoke the next line to defend the ball but we couldn’t get that today, also maybe because of the defensive organisation and the discipline of Chippa and you have to give them credit for that. We knew how difficult they are, we spoke about their physicality, you saw how they fight in the duels. We spoke about [Bienvenu] Eva Nga, his speed in relation to transitions and you could see some of the chances.
“But, yeah, we gave a lot of opportunities away and we don’t want to be a team that gives the opponent a lot of chances but we did that today and it had to do with how we used the ball, how we structured when we had possession.
“That’s probably the most important thing in football [results], however, as tacticians and coaches we can’t sell results, we don’t have that power,” he continued.
“Ours is to ensure the performances are good enough to be able to win football matches and sometimes even when the performance is good enough you don’t win but sometimes when you win and the performance is not good enough, you still have to analyse the performance because we’re people of process.
“It’s a long season, playing for the result is not gonna help us sustain the success and achieve the targets that we want. So, we cannot be caught in the result too much. Yes, good, two goals, three points, clean sheet, congratulations to the boys for getting the job done.”