Mamelodi Sundowns not competing against Kaizer Chiefs for PSL title – Mosimane

While acknowledging Kaizer Chiefs’ good run in the Premier Soccer League (PSL), Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane is focusing on winning their games, saying they are not competing against the Soweto giants.

‘Jingles’ admitted that coach Ernst Middendorp’s men have the edge as far as the league is concerned, but said they competing against 15 PSL clubs, including Bidvest Wits and Orlando Pirates.

Masandawana are trailing the Glamour Boys by 10 points as they occupy the second spot on the league table but believes they are still on track to reach 72 points at the end of the season.

“I don’t want to focus on Kaizer Chiefs. In the past six years, we have run the race with all the teams. We ran the first two or three with Kaizer Chiefs,” Mosimane told the media as quoted by Independent Media.

“They won it once and we won it twice. We have run the race with Bidvest Wits. They won it and lost it to us again, and then we ran the race with Pirates for the past two years. We are running races every year.

“If you focus on other people you are losing the plot. You need to focus on yourself. We know how we win the league.

“We’ve won the league four times in the last six years. Twice we’ve been second, so this is not new to us. What we need to focus on is Sundowns.

“If anybody has more than five to us, good luck to them. It means they have done very well. 

"You got to focus on yourself. We are focusing on our process. You can talk about 10 points but we are five points behind our programme. Our target is 72 points. We are running our own race.”

Moreover, the reigning PSL Coach of the Season has downplayed the talks that they are wrestling for the PSL honours with the Naturena-based club alone.

“Fifteen teams are our rivals. It is not only Kaizer Chiefs who are our rivals. Wits are our rivals. Pirates are our rivals. There’s also SuperSport United and all the other teams," he added.

“Chiefs is not our direct rivals. Yes, they have the edge. They have the lead. They are winning. You can question how they win but that’s your issue.

“You can stay there at the corner and try and justify it, but they are winning. They are taking their chances. They are doing very well but we have to stay calm.”

With the Brazilians currently experiencing a challenging run as they failed to get maximum points out of two previous PSL matches, Mosimane will look to use the current international break to fine-tune his squad.