Tornado aim to put Amavarara in the eye of the storm

Tornado coach Tshepo Motsoeneng is expecting Amavarara to be in counter-attack mode when the two sides take each other on in an ABC Motsepe League encounter at North End Stadium in East London on Saturday.

The third-tier league defending champions are fresh from a morale-boosting 2-0 victory against Birmingham City on Wednesday at North End Stadium. Motsoeneng said after their “disappointing performance” during the Nedbank Cup playoffs final where they beat SAB League outfit – Mqanduli United 1-0 at Mthatha Stadium over the weekend they had to bounce back.

“We scored two and the important think we didn’t concede again. We missed an avalanche of goals [against Birmingham].

“But it’s okay, because we were on target and the opposition’s keeper kept on making saves and that’s what we want,” Motsoeneng told Dispatch on the sidelines at training at North End on Thursday.

Signalling an improvement in City’s performance he said: “They’ll sit and try to catch us on the counter [attack], because they think they have speed . . . but it means they are going to have to use a lot of energy to try to mark the whole time.

“And if they come up with an open game-plan, it will suit us because we’ll be able to play and it will be toe-to-toe.

“But in the end, it will depend on who uses their chances more, but I promise we won’t concede – they’ll concede.”

Motsoeneng said being the defending champions, meant that they had to be at the top of their game, by improving their position on the log-standings. They are currently in fourth position with 15 points.

“We are within a point to get back to the full swing of things again. Amavarara are coming up from SAB League, and they are new kids on the block and they want to impose themselves on the league.

“I think it’s too early for them and at the end of the day, we just have to bully them around and put them in their place.

“We have a game-plan them,” said Motsoeneng. for

The former Free State Stars shot-stopper said playing at home gave them the upperhand. He said the combinations in the team was an important platform for their focus on transition as seen last year.

“We were quick going forward, and we were not having much buildups.

“We would hurt you quickly and we were closing the game very early, but now we buildup a lot. When asked about the Nedbank Cup after having qualified for the lucrative tournament Motsoeneng said: “Our focus is on the league. The Nedbank Cup structure.

“We have the liberty to watch how PSL teams play and they don’t know how we play.

“So we sort of practice mostly how to hurt them because in PSL or NFD there’s that bit of space.

“Yes they might be intelligent in terms of using the spaces in between, but we are also intelligent in terms of using the space they are not aware of while they’re playing.” “ - we already have a

At the end of the day we just have to bully them and put them in their place