Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi plays down 'championship favourites' tag

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi is not interested in entertaining widespread talk that the Brazilians are DStv Premiership champions in waiting.

With the league campaign having reached the business end, Sundowns enjoys an 18-point lead but Mngqithi doesn’t agree that it is a matter of when and not if they will be crowned champions.

The Brazilians brushed aside TS Galaxy 3-0 on Wednesday night to increase their advantage at the top of the log but Mngqithi chose to go the humble route after their 15th win of the season.

They may still face a possible late charge by third-placed Kaizer Chiefs who have four games in hand, but they remain overwhelming favourites to win an unprecedented fifth successive league title.

“Our focus is never really on the championship that much, we’ve got processes that we always focus on,” said Mngqithi after their dominant win over TS Galaxy, which was secured through goals by Khuliso Mudau, Haashim Domingo and Peter Shalulile.

“That’s where we gauge whether we have done well or not.

So, we are looking at those processes. As to whether the championship is gone or not, is never really what we focus on.

“We have our own little milestones that we want to achieve as a team, whether the championship can be won earlier or not, we will still be looking at our processes and making sure that we better our best performance of last season.”

Last season, the Brazilians won the league by 67 points and Mngqithi pointed out their target is to do better.

“Maybe try to get as closer as possible to the unthinkable in terms of the number of points. So, basically, what we are focusing on is not really looking at the gap and everything that everybody else is focused on.”

There were heated moments between TS Galaxy coach Sead Ramović and Steve Komphela on the touchline but Mngqithi dismissed it as one of those things that happen in the heat of the moment.

“I just think that they had heated discussions based on some moments in the game where there were some disagreements. But it is not something that one would really want to spend most of his time on because it is normal in football.

“We all get emotional like everybody else but it was never anything malicious or disrespectful.  I thought it was a very emotional exchange based on what was happening on the pitch.”

Looking back at the win, Mngqothi said they bounced back well after an unsatisfactory first half.

“To be honest I don’t think we had a good first half, we lost too many balls and we gave too much freedom to their centrebacks to initiate attacks. We looked a little bit tired.

“We knew what we wanted to do but structurally we made some mistakes in our build-up, there were moments when we were not happy as coaches.    

“We made far too many mistakes but second half we came back stronger. We were aware of what do to and in most instances we had better options when we regained the ball.

“The performance of the first half was not pleasing but still good enough to give us a lead but in the second half we could have done more if we were ruthless in front of goals.”