Sundowns anticipating low block against Arrows
The Brazilians host Abafana Bes'thende at Tuks Stadium on Saturday evening.
Mamelodi Sundowns are capable of breaking down and wall, says head coach Manqoba Mngqithi. (Picture: Lefty Shivambu/Gallo Images)
Manqoba Mngqithi expects Vusimuzi Vilakazi to set-up his team in the form of a immovable and unshakable block when Golden Arrows visit Mamelodi Sundowns at the Tuks Stadium on Saturday night.
Mngqithi believes that most teams will continue to sit back when they play against them, much like how Chippa United sat back and absorbed the pressure until they cracked in the last minute earlier this week.
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“We always anticipate that we will have more than 80% of the games played with a low block and this is what has been happening these past seasons,” said Mngqithi.
“Some of the big teams resort to this strategy against us and we are always preparing our team for that. We do create opportunities because our wish is to break the game down early which is what happened in our game against Kaizer Chiefs where we put them on the sword very early in the game and ended up winning 4-0.
“If you bury your chances early, it becomes very difficult for the team to sit back because they have to open up and come at you. When we start to score, we can end up scoring a lot of goals because the strategy that has been prepared is to sit back and make life difficult for us but that type of game requires a lot of courage and patience from our team to look for the final pass,” he added.
Downs have not been a free-scoring team this season and Mngqithi says they need to find a way to break down teams.
“When you are not scoring it looks like what the opposition is doing is not good but what it does is that it makes us dig deeper and we have a team that is capable of breaking down these kinds of matches. This is what we know for a fact that we will be facing it throughout the season.”
Abafana Bes’thende will look to follow in the footsteps of TS Galaxy to become the second team to beat Sundowns in their own backyard this season.
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