Mngqithi: Referees turning PSL into a ‘banana’ league

Manqoba Mngqithi was livid after watching his Mamelodi Sundowns side suffer their second DStv Premiership defeat this season as they succumbed to Maritzburg United, who beat them 2-1 on Saturday evening at the Harry Gwala Stadium. Downs went up first through a Peter Shalulile goal but soon after, Alfred Ndengane equalized with a towering heading, but on his leap, he climbed on Thapelo Morena’s shoulders and Mngqithi believes that referee Thando Ndzanzeka should have disallowed the goal for a foul.

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“The only sad thing is that we have lost our second match now and both matches that we lost were because of dubious decisions,” said Mngqithi.  

“The first loss to AmaZulu was a clear offside and this loss to Maritzburg, Ndengane climbed on top of Thapelo for the first goal and that was in the view of the referee, it is not like he was impeded… he could see what was happening in front of him. From there, they had the penalty, the player dived even before Kennedy Mweene made that tackle and it resulted in a penalty.

“You then ask yourself – should we lose matches because of the decisions of the referee or do we lose matches because we are not doing what we are supposed to do? We take the blame for not scoring as many but on the other side, we are saying let’s not turn our league into a banana league,” the Masandawana mentor added.

Mngqithi is of the view that his side did not deserve to lose against the Team of Choice, at the same time, he takes responsibility for Downs’s failure to make the most of their opportunities.

“It is very unfortunate to lose because we had a very dominant performance, we created far too many chances to win the match and maybe we must blame ourselves for the chances we did not take. The truth of the matter is that we should have taken them and when you don’t take your chances, you get punished,” said the Sundowns co-head coach.