Stylish soccer takes a back seat as Sundowns go in search of eighth league title
Mamelodi Sundowns will take a pragmatic approach in their last four Absa Premiership matches of the season.
The Brazilians resume their assault for an eighth league title when they take on Golden Arrows at Loftus on Tuesday night and coach Pitso Mosimane said they are not always going to play out football that is easy on the eye.
“We need to grind the results and there will be no frills football‚" he said as he looked ahead to their fourth league match in less than two weeks.
"Our supporters must expect that only next year because we are in a critical stage of the season.”
Since April 4‚ Sundowns have beaten Chippa United‚ Baroka FC‚ Bidvest Wits and another win over Maritzburg United‚ who they meet again in the Nedbank Cup semi-final in Durban on Sunday‚ will bring them closer to the championship.
For Sundowns to go all the way and dethrone outgoing champions Wits‚ Percy Tau will have to play a central role in their ambitions and Mosimane said his attacking midfielder has been phenomenal in all competitions.
“He did well against Wits by providing two assists but I am happy that we had two different scorers against Wits in the form of Sibusiso Vilakazi and Themba Zwane‚" Mosimane said.
"Zwane said to me that he wanted to be in the starting line-up and he came up with that kind of performance and a goal. This is what we want.
“I am so happy that Percy is still among the top goal scorers because we never had a leading scorer since I came here.
"All our goals are spread around because of the way we play.
"We interchange positions and because of that we are not easily going to have a target man who will score for us.
"I am happy for Percy because he shows that he is a professional and he plays for the team. Our players showed they are Bafana Bafana players and they came to the party.”
Mosimane added that they would have to carefully negotiate through their programme in the coming weeks because they are still fighting on three fronts in the league‚ Nedbank Cup and the Caf Champions League group stages.
“This league match against Maritzburg on Tuesday is too close from our last match‚" the Sundowns coach said.
"But‚ there is nothing much we can do about it except to go out there and grind out the results.
"Hopefully we will win against Maritzburg again in the Nedbank Cup at the weekend and maybe by then we will have Thapelo Morena‚ Subisiso Vilakazi and Khama Billiat back from injuries.”