Tembo happy with players adapting to forced system after City win

Despite the challenges at SuperSport United, head coach Kaitano Tembo was delighted to see his team wrap the year with a good win against Cape Town City.

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Matsatsantsa haven’t had their full squad since the outbreak of Covid-19 at the club early in December, but he managed to welcome back midfielder Teboho Mokoena and captain Ronwen Williams back into the team for their final game of the year.

Both players played quite a huge role in the team’s 3-2 win over the Cape side, with Williams making some fine saves, while Mokoena scored a spectacular free-kick.

But, United almost gave the game away after going 2-0 up, only to allow Cape City back into the game by making it 2-2 with the Mother City based outfit one man down following the red card of Thabo Nodada.

“Look, I think we started very well. Good first 45 minutes although we changed the way we normally play. We played with a diamond in midfield, we didn’t have wingers because most of our players are unfit, especially our wingers. So, we had to change a little bit, but I was quite happy with the way the players adapted and we scored our goal through what we wanted to do – play the ball on the channel on transition to Jones (Gamphani Lungu) or Thamsanqa Gabuza, using Jones pace to get behind Taariq Fielies and Nathan Fasika and that’s how we scored the first goal.

“And the second goal, individual brilliance from Tebza, a good free-kick that really put us on the front foot. So, the first half was very good, the second half after the red card the game became a little bit scrappy and they were chasing the game. They had to take risks, they had to throw in numbers and I think we panicked a bit in terms of our defending. We were not calm and composed, but we regrouped, kept on going and scored the third goal. It was that type of a game where anything could happen.”

SuperSport will go into holidays with their heads held high with the club in position six having collected 26 points in their last 17 games.