Sundowns style will suit Chippa down to the ground

Chippa United coach Eric Tinkler is expecting a different ball game against Mamelodi Sundowns when the sides meet in an Absa Premiership fixture at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium in East London on October 27.

The Port Elizabeth-based professional soccer team struggled with the aerial style of play employed by Highlands Park in their last game, which they lost 2-1, in Tembisa on Saturday.

Tinkler is pleased to be playing against a side that plays a similar brand of soccer as the Chilli Boys.

The coach now has a threeweek break to fine-tune his team before they play Sundowns. The gap comes thanks to the international window.

“We don’t need to make changes because they don’t play the long ball, they don’t play the aerial ball.

“They are a football team, they look to play good football,” Tinkler said.

“I don’t think Highlands played good football. I don’t think it was entertaining to watch their brand of football, but it works and we struggled to deal with them. Credit must be given to them for that.”

However, the coach also understands that his team need to be alert when it comes to the aerial style of play and said they would use their break to master dealing with high balls.

“It’s an area we need to work on,” Tinkler said.

“I said it against Free State Stars because they also play long and high balls and once or twice we got caught.

“I spoke to the players and told them we are going to play against teams who are actually better at doing it, which was the case with Highlands.

“Then you have another team that is coming up that is even better than Highlands – Wits also play the long ball.

“We need to get better at dealing with that, we need to show aggression. That is the area we need to work on.

“But against Sundowns it’s different. They don’t look to play aerial balls, they look to play the ball on the ground.

“They look to support and move, they look to play on the transitions. It suits our style of play more. But we need to adapt ourselves to the teams who play the high ball.”