Larsen knows Celtic face tough task
CLINTON LARSEN admits his side will have to fight tooth and nail if they are to beat Orlando Pirates in tonight’s Absa Premiership encounter at Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein (kickoff 7.30pm).
This comes after the Bloemfontein Celtic coach witnessed Pirates produce some brilliant performances in the Confederation Cup.
“It’s going to be a tough ask for us to get a good result against them, but we are up for the challenge,” Larsen said.
“They’ve been playing consistently from the last season and that gives them an advantage for this clash.
“Their level of fitness is very high compared to ours because we had a four-week break (dur- ing the off-season) while they continued playing (in the Confederation Cup).”
“I even had to rest our players for the past two days, following our game against Platinum Stars over the past weekend.
“The boys were tired and we had to give them time to recover building up to this clash.”
“I’ll be the first to admit that our levels of fitness are not where we want them to be yet but we are working on it,” he added.
Celtic, like Pirates, had a bad start to this campaign but both clubs have since shown great improvement.
Siwelele were subjected to a 3-2 defeat by Polokwane City in their opening match of the season, while Pirates lost 1-0 to SuperSport United in Polokwane.
Celtic then went on to draw twice – against Kaizer Chiefs (in the MTN8 first leg semi-final) and Platinum Stars in their second match of their league campaign, while Pirates produced a win in their second match of the season when they beat Chippa United 4-1 at home.
Larsen said he had to sit down and analyse his opponents thoroughly, in order to avoid the same misfortune happening to his team.
“I’ve watched Pirates in their previous games and they are a side who like to shoot from range in search for goals,” he said.
“They’ve been successful on several occasions in their previous matches and we need to be watchful of that in tonight’s game.
“We had a slow start into this campaign but I’m happy with how we learned for our previous mistakes.
“We gave solid performances in our previous matches and I’m happy with how the boys have picked up since our defeat in the first game of the PSL season.
“We where solid at the back and very strong going forward, and this is what we need to implement in this encounter.
“We need to be solid at the back and hopefully we’ll win this one.”
There are four other games being played tonight with Ajax Cape Town hosting Free State Stars, Jomo Cosmos visiting the Lucas Moripe Stadium to face SuperSport United, Platinum Stars’ Royal Bafokeng Stadium playing host to their clash with Golden Arrows while Bidvest