Will Tembo find the winning formula to beat CT City?

Cape Town City are remarkably unbeaten in eight games against SuperSport United, effectively proving to be the voodoo team for Kaitano Tembo, who will this weekend have another chance to try get the better of the Mother City outfit.

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Tembo is one coach who believes in righting wrongs and learning from past mistakes, but City somehow always manage to send him back to the drawing board, where he still cannot strike the winning formulae.

Perhaps the City test, this time around, comes at an opportune period for Matsatsantsa A Pitori as City come off the back ofa 2-0 defeat at the hands of Orlando Pirates, and even though SuperSport come from a defeat themselves, they are high on the confidence of being among the pacesetters of the DStv Premiership, as they sit second behind rivals Mamelodi Sundowns, who are five points clear.

“Our matches against City have always been closely contested and we are two teams that probably have a similar playing style and structure. Cape Town City have been doing very well and I see them as one of the best teams,” said Tembo.

“Last season they beat us in one game and now it will be important to impose our game to them and try to make sure that we don’t allow them to play their normal game because they are very effective and they … can play in triangles so our pressing has got to be good.

“We have to use our strength going forward, which is Bradley Grobler, Thamsanqa Gabuza, Evans Rusike as well as Gamphani Lungu. It is going to be a tough game for both sides.”

Tembo’s side will be without veteran left-back Onismor Bhasera and are likely to not have Grant Kekana available – the former is nursing a check-bone issue while Kekana has the flu. Last time out against Bloemfontein Celtic who beat them 2-1, The Spartans had just six players on their substitute’s bench.

However, the lack of personnel does not seem to bother Tembo much as he prefers to have a slimmer squad.

“In a normal season before Covid, we would want to have less players, not more than 25 because it is not always easy to manage a big squad and you are not going to be able to give anyone enough game time, and that can cause a lot of problems.

“You still want to be consistent in team selection, you can’t be chopping and changing every week, because you won’t have that momentum. We have to try and develop combinations as well. I would always want it to be a small squad, regardless of where we are at the moment.

“If I look back to see if I have given enough opportunities to all the players in the last 15 games, I would say yes. Only a few youngsters who have just been promoted and if I look at the progression of the players who were promoted, last season Luke Fleurs started about 14 games and this season he has already started 12 games halfway through the campaign.”

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