Hopeful signs despite goalless draw – Moloi
DISAPPOINTMENT is a word he cannot use when examining their goalless draw against Bloemfontein Celtic in a Premier Soccer League fixture at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium at the weekend, Chippa United caretaker coach Teboho Moloi said.
The tie was Moloi’s third stalemate since taking over the reins from axed Dan Malesela.
Chippa played with a sense of urgency and intensity against Siwelele, which is something that the coach said his players needed to possess to beat Celtic.
However, the Chilli Boys failed to convert their chances.
“I am not disappointed. We should have won the game, there’s more to disappointment than to you seeing an improvement.
“I saw an improvement today,” Moloi said while speaking to the media after the match.
“In the past two games we only had one shot or two at goals, but today the chances that we created and we couldn’t convert, there were a lot.
“You could see the speed now going forward, you could see now there is a little bit of understanding of what is counter-attack.
“You could see that the boys now understand that when we win the ball we need to change direction, change our pace, change the point of attack and when we get into the box we need to finish.
“That is why we hit the upright and we hit the crossbar. You can see a lot of different techniques that were supposed to be used to score the ball and if it doesn’t fall you can’t fault them.
“It’s 10 days that I am in this job and showing them how to go forward and how to get into the box. If they don’t do it I should encourage them.
“Disappointment, I can’t use that word. I want to pat them on the back and say: ‘Boys, it was there, the chances were there. You see now if you play like this, this is what happens and now it’s for you to finish off the chances when they come.’ ”
Celtic coach Veselin Jelusic said he was happy to take a point back home.
“We didn’t play the way that we wanted. It was not a good performance like the previous games. We played better against Baroka.
“We had some technical difficulties during the game and we must recognise that in some situations we were lucky,” he said.