SuperSport United captain Dean Furman admits that he was not surprised at his sides 4-1 defeat of Orlando Pirates in the Nedbank Cup having achieved a similar feat against the same side.
Stuart Baxter’s charges become the first side in the history of the competition to clinch back-to-back Nedbank Cup titles after a brace by Bradley Grobler and further goals by Jeremy Brockie and Kingston Nkatha condemned the Soweto giants to yet another trophyless season.
When quizzed about the one-sided result, the Bafana Bafana interntional highlighted the 6-1 defeat that Pirates suffered at the hands of Matsatsantsa in the Absa Premiership in November last year, which resulted in the resignation of former coach Muhsin Ertrugal.
“We’ve done it before against Pirates, so it wasn’t necessarily a surprise for us,” he told Soccer Laduma.
“We know that, once everything clicks in our game with our shape and structure, we’re an incredibly dangerous team and we’ve scored four or more on many occasions this season. So we know that if we get it right then we can exploit the opposition’s weakness and that’s what we did.
“They had a scare at 1-0 when Brockie missed a penalty, although they rode out the storm . We talk about critical phases a lot, and the coach said the whole second half would be a critical phase.
“For five minutes after the penalty miss, the crowd went wild and it lifted them a bit. We just had to manage those moments and calm everything down.
“Credit to him, five minutes later he put one in the back of the net and we went from strength to strength from there,’ he added.
Furman also spoke about the dissapointment of missing out on the league title and said that they have their sights set on the prize for next season.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bitterly disappointed about how we fell away in the league. We were at the top and fell short in the end, and that’s hard to take.
“This Nedbank win will be with me for the rest of my life, never mind my career, but the league is the one we want to go for. We feel like we’ve got the squad and players who have been there and done it.
“Next year we want to go all the way, and we’ve got a coach coming in with new ideas that we’re excited to take on board. We’re ready to get stuck in with Eric as soon as possible and certainly the league title is the one we’re all wanting” he concluded.
SuperSport resume their Caf Confederation Cup exploits when they travel to face Horoya next weekend.
Photo: Gerhard Duraan/BackpagePix
– This story originally appeared on SoccerClub.co.za