The Citizen (Gauteng)

Pitso urges stars to use their heads

SUNDOWNS COACH: THEY NEED TO BE A LITTLE SHREWD

- Michaelson Gumede

Mosimane admits they are missing the prolific Percy Tau.

Pitso Mosimane is running the risk of sounding like a record that is stuck, as he has yet again said he wants his attacking players to be “shrewd” in front of goal and kill the game off as soon as possible.

The Mamelodi Sundowns coach has accused his strikers of not scoring as many goals as he wants of late, with Downs the highest scorers in the Absa Premiershi­p in recent seasons.

The Brazilians take on Equatorial Guinea side Leones Vegetarian­os tonight at Lucas Moripe Stadium in the second leg of the Caf Champions League preliminar­y round, which they lead 2-0 on aggregate.

“They want to play pretty football but they need to be a little shrewd,” said Mosimane.

“You know South African players’ mentality, they love to show off, but that is not going to help us in the Champions League. We need to kill the game off as soon as possible if we can,” he added.

“It is also good to play football because this thing of just kicking the ball and somebody flicks it … we don’t want that. We want to watch football and we try to give the right product so that people at home will sit and watch.”

Mosimane has hinted he may make a few changes to his side that beat SuperSport United 2-1 in the Tshwane derby this past weekend.

“Anele (Ngcongca) has an Achilles but he played there (in Equatorial Guinea), Lyle didn’t play there, so maybe I can give the other guys some rest,” said Mosimane before he went on to admit how his team misses Percy Tau, who left Downs in July to join English side Brighton and Hove Albion and was subsequent­ly loaned out to Belgian side Royale Union Saint-Gilloise.

“Percy is on fire, it is unbelievab­le the kind of player we have missed. Just imagine if we still had Percy in the team it would be different. But he had to go, we can’t be selfish.”

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