Pitso urges Downs to buckle up for dip
A CANDID Pitso Mosimane has warned those associated with Mamelodi Sundowns to buckle up as the Brazilians experience turbulence, predicting that the team will dip before flying high once again. Sundowns go into their Telkom Knockout clash with Chippa United at Sisa Dukashe Stadium on Sunday after suffering successive defeats to Kaizer Chiefs and AmaZulu. Those losses were made even worse coming as they did after the club’s elimination from the CAF Champions League in the quarter-finals.
“It’s a bit difficult for Sundowns. I was telling the players and this also goes to our supporters, they must buckle up this year,” Mosimane said.
“I foresee a little bit of turbulence along the way. It’s going to be tough. We haven’t stabilised the team also this year. We’ve had a lot of injuries and we were forced to bring this one and that one in. I haven’t found my proper starting XI.
“We need to find the rhythm. Sundowns must be patient. I foresee us going through a dip even though the play is convincing.
“I am yet to see a team totally outplay us.”
The Chilli Boys will try to outplay Sundowns in East London on Sunday.
Chippa will go into the match confident after registering their first win under coach
Teboho Moloi to build on the five successive draws before the victory over Cape Town City.
Battered confidence
While Chippa are on a high, the Brazilians’ confidence has taken a battering.
Said Mosimane: “When the results don’t come, you have to be honest in your assessment of the team. I think in the game against Kaizer Chiefs, we were a little bit blunt in our attack …I n the last game against AmaZulu, we improved our attack. We were a little bit wasteful with our chances. We didn’t take our chances and that’s one of the reasons we didn’t win.”
Mosimane continued, “We need to improve our defence because we conceded two goals in (each of) our last two games. We also have to work on confidence because the players feel like, ‘what’s happening now’.
“From the last two games, decisions (from the referees) weren’t good. I told them that they can’t worry about those decisions. We have to be honest with ourselves also and admit that we haven’t been defending well and we haven’t been attacking well. “We have to move on.” Mosimane welcomes back Anthony Laffor and Khama Billiat from injury.
But it will take more than the return of that duo for the Brazilians to turn things around, especially as they go in search of their first domestic knockout trophy in two years – the same Telkom Knockout .
“We’ve been on the ropes, we’ve had some major achievements and we have raked in a lot of miles (travelling in the country and the continent),” Mosimane said.
“We’ve have gone through three seasons without a break. I think that we are going to go through a dip. We should buckle up. But we will come back.
We have enough quality.” LEWIS Hamilton says he wants to secure his fourth Formula One title by winning Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix, rather than finishing fifth.
The Mercedes driver is on the brink of becoming Britain’s first four-times world champion, one more than Jackie Stewart, and needs only a fifth place to do so, such is his advantage.
The 32-year-old is in the form of his life, winning five of the last six races to build up a 66-point advantage over Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel with three rounds remaining.
“I plan to win. I’m not here for anything else but number one,” Hamilton told a news conference in Mexico City on Wednesday evening.
“I was just thinking about it as I was walking in here. It is true that I only need to finish fifth. But I thought, ‘How would I feel if I was to finish fifth and win the world championship?’ It wouldn’t feel great.”
Hamilton actually felt pretty good the last time that happened, albeit in different circumstances.
He won his first championship with McLaren in 2008 by the skin of his teeth after finishing fifth in the last race of the season in Brazil with an overtake on the last corner of the final lap.
The circumstances are very different now, with the Briton sure to lead all the way to the final race in Abu Dhabi next month even if he does not score in Mexico or Brazil.
Mexico is his second chance to wrap up the title after the mathematical possibility first arose in Texas last weekend.
Vettel finished second in that race, staving off the seemingly inevitable for one more week at least.
“I want to be on the top of the podium. You want to be up there … as a racing driver, you constantly want to show your performance and your strength and you never want that to waiver,” Hamilton said. “So, that’s my goal this weekend.
“It’s going to be difficult I think … a lot closer between Red Bull and Ferrari and us. But I love that. And so I’m hoping that if I’m able to drive like I did in the last race, last week, I think it could be a good weekend.”
“I’m very, very proud to raise the British flag every time I’m on the podium. And to be up there with the greats, now potentially one step ahead of the greats in the UK … it’s beyond my dreams and beyond my family’s wildest dreams.” – Reuters