Mamelodi Sundowns senior coach Steve Komphela feels that there is lot the Brazilians “need to improve on” but will not be giving excuses for dropping two points in Saturday’s 1-1 draw away at Maritzburg United.
After Themba Zwane thrust Downs ahead in the first half, they surrendered their lead after allowing Kwanda Mngonyama to level for Maritzburg on the hour mark.
Despite dropping two points for the second time this season, Sundowns remain at the top of the PSL standings and Komphela is not looking to blame Saturday’s result on anything.
“I thought it was going to be a very difficult match, we know that very well,” Komphela told SuperSport TV.
“It showed, we did not have the space that we normally create and one observed obviously in the discussion with the rest of the team the lack of freshness that we always have. You don't know, could it be the long travelling and whatever. But you never come up with excuses in football, you just have to perform.”
The match marked Ernst Middendorp’s return for a third stint at Maritzburg and the German helped them collect their first point of the season following five straight league defeats.
"Compliment must given to them [Maritzburg] for fighting hard,” said Komphela.
“In our opinion, it's more like two points dropped because we're highly ambitious and desperate to get on with our business. The goal we conceded as well from set-play, we practice set-plays almost every time and it's just unfortunate. It becomes painful when you have to concede through something that you always work on and preach."
As tempers flared on the Sundowns bench, in apparent frustration as the match was not going their way, co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi was sent off to the stands for remonstrating.
It was a difficult evening for Downs as they witnessed Peter Shalulile miss clear-cut first-half chances while threatening to run over their hosts.
This left Komphela observing that there is a lot of aspects of their game they need to get better on.
"Coming to the chances we created, I thought we had enough chances we created, there's two, Shalulile could have scored two for us today but again you're saying you're in Maritzburg, new coach, new energy, you could see how they were fighting, you'd expect that,” Komphela said.
"We're saying, listen we're here, we'll move on, we'll take the point and go but there's lot we need to improve on. We are working hard almost everyday. It’s not easy to build a team and immediately get to the emotional glue. There has to be an element of cohesion consistently.”
Sundowns will now have eight days without competitive action before they face TS Galaxy in their next league match on December 15.
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