Future looks bleak for hapless Tigers
LAST season’s ABC Motsepe League runners-up Future Tigers suffered yet another defeat over the weekend to mark their 11th loss in the 2017-18 third-tier league season.
Tigers were beaten 2-0 by Lion City at the NU2 Stadium in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth on Saturday and they have been relegated to sixth position on the logstandings with 34 points.
The Ginsberg-based outfit were coming out from an embarrassing loss at home, when they were beaten 1-0 by struggling Matta Milan, who are sitting in 10th place on the log.
Lion City are number eight on the log, with 27 points.
Tigers caretaker coach Vuyo “George” Tyelo said the going kept on getting tougher for his charges.
“It seems like we are going uphill with each game we play, because my aim was to make sure that we beat all the teams that are behind us on the logstandings.
“But let’s be honest, that game was 50/50. We attacked, they attacked.
“So we also got chances like they did. It’s just that they managed to score with their opportunity in the first half.
“They got a corner in the second half and again they managed to score,” said Tyelo.
“We did get chances but we were just unlucky, because even when the score was 1-1 we had a chance to take the deal but we couldn’t close.
“But we also need to consider the fact that we were not as fit as the opposition, because the boys can see that we not fighting for the title. So some choose not to come to training sometimes.”
Tigers need to collect substantial points in order to finish in the top five, but Tyelo said anything was possible regardless of the challenges faced by the club.
“As a coach you can only say so much because you can even see the senior players on the pitch showing signs of defeat, and I know getting out of this is going to be difficult and things would be very hard for the team during the game.
“At least that’s not a problem for us at the moment because I think if we get a win we’ll surely recover from this.”
Tigers have three tough encounters to look forward to, as they will be facing determined newcomers Bizana Pondo Chiefs.
“The next games will not be easy for us because Pondo [Chiefs] have been doing quite well for themselves. Then we’ll go to play against Try Again and [EC] Bees.
“The Bhisho-King William’s Town derby against us and Bees is always a tough game, but we’ll try and get result, because we have to push until the season closes.”
Results were: Tornado 7 Try Again 1, Lion City 2 Future Tigers 0, Swartkops Valley United Brothers 1 Butterworth 1, Spears 3 F C Buffalo 1, Matta Milan 1 E C Bees 1, Bizana Pondo Chiefs 5 Highbury 3.