Mngqithi pushes his Sundowns strikers to do better

Most of the time Mamelodi Sundowns reach this stage of the season having scored a remarkable number of goals but this time around the attack seems to be limping if their recent standards are anything to go by.

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To be fair to Masandawana, they have scored the second highest number of goals together with SuperSport United, 22, three behind Cape Town City.

The powers that be at the Sundowns technical team are caught in between the performance of their strikers as they expect a bit more from the trio of Themba Zwane, Peter Shalulile and Kermit Erasmus, who have been the livewires up front for the defending champions.

Last time out, Shalulile scored a brace in a 2-1 win against Black Leopards in a match where Mothobi Mvala was shown a straight red card.

“I believe we can do better up front. We are getting a lot chances but we are not punishing opponents as much as we should and to be honest, that is where I am a little bit worried because even when we were one-man down we could have easily scored maybe three or four more goals but let us not be greedy, we appreciate the three points and the fact that the boys worked hard for the comeback,” said Mngqithi.

“The team is among one of the highest scoring teams in the league so we can’t start to fault them now. Peter gave us two goals and why would we blame the boys and say they are not scoring enough,” he added.

The Brazilians faithful have been critical of Mngqithi and his coaching team’s decision to constantly exclude captain Hlompho Kekana from the starting line-up. The sent off Mvala seemed to have justified Mngqithi’s decision.

“When the team went one-man down, the captain took a unilateral decision to go and play at centre back and he did exceptionally well. We were very impressed and I have always told people that there will be a time in the league where the captain comes back and helps the team.

“Mvala had to do what he had to do and he took one for the team. The boy helped us because Ramagalela is quick and he is also very clinical in front of goal.”

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