Tinkler’s City look to put spanner in Pirates’ top three pursuit

Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler knows that his charges are going to find it hard coming up against Orlando Pirates, but believes his team will put up a good fight when the sides lock horns in a DStv Premiership match at the Orlando Stadium on Wednesday.

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The Mother City based outfit haven’t been able to beat the Soweto giants since August 2020, thanks to former striker Kermit Erasmus’ solitary goal that earned the Capetonians a 1-0 victory in a league clash.

Pirates head into this fixture knowing maximum points will take them to second spot on the league table, something Tinkler believes will be a motivation for the Buccaneers. 

The Buccaneers are sitting in fourth place on the log at the moment with 31 points, two points behind second-placed Royal AM.

City have their own objectives and Tinkler is happy that the team is currently doing well after registering four points in their last two league matches against Kaizer Chiefs and Golden Arrows. They played to a goalless draw with Amakhosi, before beating Arrows 1-0.

“We are going to a very big league fixture away from home against Orlando Pirates on Wednesday evening, obviously after the break it’s important for us  to have started well in the league, collecting maximum points against Golden Arrows, which was a positive,” said Tinkler, who is a former Pirates coach. 

“We had a few days extra to work with the new players and I think they have all intergrated extremely well. I think everybody is highly motivated to go to Pirates and try to collect some valuable points at this stage of the season.

“We know it’s not going to be easy, they are a team that is looking to ensure that they finish in the top three to obviously qualify for Caf (competitions) again. But, we also have our objectives, we have set our targets and we need to be able to go there and compete against Pirates.”

Cape Town City, who are in position nine on the league table, really need full points as well in order for the club to jump into the top half of the log. They have only managed to gather 26 points in 18 games so far this season.