SuperSport United coach Kaitano Tembo during the DStv Premiership match between SuperSport United and Maritzburg United at Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium last Saturday. (Photo by Lefty Shivambu/Gallo Images)
SuperSport United supporters are probably not too excited about their team’s decent start to the DStv Premiership campaign, and the reason behind that could be that they are used to seeing Matsatsantsa A Pitori starting like a house on fire but somehow always stumble in the second stretch of the season.
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This time around, United are second on the log, trailing defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns by two points and have not lost a game. Head coach Kaitano Tembo cannot hide how annoyed he is with his team’s inconsistency and how they always drop the ball towards the final stretch of the season. However, he says he has a plan to navigate this campaign differently.
“We always set targets at the start of the season, it is always about improving. If as a player, you’ve played 10 games last season, you will have to play more than 10 this season and that is how we improve our players. For example, Sipho Mbule has already scored two goals this season in four matches and last season he scored four goals and he had about seven assists, so we need him to do better than that,” said Tembo.
“We need to try and win every game and be competitive, that is always our ambition and we want to do better than the previous season. We want to see our team improving and we have noticed that the team is changing with a lot of youngsters who are coming into the picture. We have a competitive squad and we have always been in the top six for the past few seasons
Tembo added: “We owe it to the league to make sure that it is competitive so we are always going to try and win it because we have won it before and we believe that we are assembling a team that can achieve that and be dominant in South African football. This is an obligation to all the teams in the league to try and make it competitive.”
SuperSport chiseled out a win against Maritzburg United this past weekend, beating them 2-1 at the Lucas Moripe Stadium.
Tembo was not entirely pleased with the performance, saying his players took their foot off the pedal in crucial stages of the game. However, he gladly took the three points despite what he described as a “lukewarm performance”.
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