‘Don’t let your attention slip’
MOSIMANE: WE HAVE TO FIRST FOCUS ON HIGHLANDS PARK, NOT CHIEFS
Pitso Mosimane has encouraged his players to focus solely on tomorrow evening’s Absa Premiership clash with Highlands Park, and pay no heed to the distraction of Sunday’s mouth-watering league showdown with Kaizer Chiefs.
Sundowns are guaranteed to end the week on top of the table if they can beat both Highlands and Chiefs, but Mosimane, perhaps in another round of mind games, played down the importance of the Amakhosi match.
“You know Highlands will be tough, they will be running more than this” he told SuperSport TV after his side had cruised to a 5-0 win over AmaZulu in the Telkom Knockout last-16 on Sunday.
“You don’t want to play that game before Kaizer Chiefs, but it is not about the Chiefs game, it is about Highlands …. We have two games in hand, and Highlands are a thorn in the flesh, we must focus on Highlands, not Chiefs and by the way, for us to win the league, we don’t have to beat Chiefs.”
Mosimane was not entirely happy with his team on Sunday, even though they dismantled Jozef Vukusic’s AmaZulu side in the second half at the Lucas Moripe Stadium.
“What I like is to score goals, but still, we could have scored more,” added Mosimane.
“They (the players) went into a mode, of a South African mentality, when you have three or four, you start to show how good you are on the ball. When we played Cote D’Or (Sundowns won a Champions League qualifier 11-0 at home) it was much better, we had that precision passing, going forward, crossing and finishing …. Man City scored eight (against Watford), Bayern scored seven against Spurs, so we must score more.”
Owen da Gama’s Highlands also head into tomorrow’s clash with Sundowns off the back of a successful cup-tie, though theirs was more arduous, after playing 120 goalless minutes against Black Leopards and going through via a penalty shoot-out.
The MTN8 finalists have had an excellent start to the season, and could pose Masandawana some problems, though Sundowns’ fresher legs and far greater squad depth is more likely to prove telling.