City keeper asks to be released before Maritzburg draw

Cape Town City remain bottom of the DStv Premiership standings with just one point after four games. 

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The Citizens’ winless run continued on Tuesday night as they played to a goalless draw against Maritzburg United at Athlone Stadium. 

City made five changes to the team who started the game against AmaZulu at the weekend. Goalkeeper Hugo Marques, who was caught off his line for both goals against Usuthu, was the most notable absentee. 

Phakaaathi has learnt that the Angolan keeper has asked that City release him. It is possible that he is one of the players that coach Eric Tinkler was referring to when he said some players needed to get their off-the-field act together. 

Tinker said this after their 2-1 loss at AmaZulu. The changes rejuvenated his team and they dominated the game. 

Former Bafana Bafana keeper Darren Keet came on in his place and had a decent game if you consider that he had not played in a long time. 

Maritzburg looked happy to sit back and try to catch City on a break but their chances were few and far between.  

City had the better chances and could have gone into the break enjoying a healthy lead. But a combination of good goalkeeping from King Ndlovu and some poor finishing meant the teams went into the break tied at 0-0. 

City took the initiative again in the second half and continued creating chances without making meaningful use of them. 

With time slowly running out, Maritzburg realised that they could actually get more than a point out of the game. Their coach, John Maduka then introduced attacking minded players in Friday Samu and Siboniso Conco. 

The latter almost made an immediate impact but his attempt went wide as he tried to catch out Keet with a long range strike. 

The result means both sides will have to continue their search for the elusive win in their next games. 

City will play Western Cape rivals Stellenbosch FC while Maritzburg will host Chippa United on Saturday.