Sundowns

Pavol Safranko of Mamelodi Sundowns celebrates goal with teammates during the DStv Premiership 2021/22 match between Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates at Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria on 17 December 2021 Photo: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix

Mokwena praises flexibility of Sundowns players after Pirates rout

Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Rhulani Mokwena gave credit to his players for taking on board a shift in approach at halftime.

Sundowns

Pavol Safranko of Mamelodi Sundowns celebrates goal with teammates during the DStv Premiership 2021/22 match between Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates at Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria on 17 December 2021 Photo: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix

Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Rhulani Mokwena gave credit to his players for taking on board a shift in approach at halftime of their match against Orlando Pirates.

Sundowns went into the break locked at 0-0 with the Soweto giants, but a 50th goal for the club from Themba Zwane, a Pavol Safranko double and a 13th PSL goal for the season from Peter Shalulile powered a 4-1 win for the defending champions.

Mokwena lauds flexbility of Sundowns players

Mokwena also lauded Pirates for neutralising Downs’ plan A.

“Compliments to Pirates for the start, it was clear that they worked very hard on their schemes, they pressed us well in the first couple of minutes and they build up very well with one ball that came from Ben and our midfield was a little bit too far out,” Mokwena told SuperSport TV.

“And it was the first time they did that build up because we watched their game, normally they don’t engage with the central midfielders but we sorted that, we worked a little bit harder on it.

“Their structure gave us a couple of problems because they play a little bit awkward and they are comfortable doing that, they play that way every single day and it works for them when Paseka [Mako] inverts a little bit and becomes a third centre-back, Hotto becomes a wing-back.

“And when Hotto becomes a wing-back, they look to overload the midfield with Neverdie [Makhubela], [Thembinkosi] Lorch and it becomes a box in midfield, we had a lot of problems dealing with four versus two, especially when they go short.

“It was better for us when we forced them to go long and we could deal with the two that is engaging the striker but when they play there’s a four across and to press, so we struggled a little bit.

“On the second-half we changed things a little bit, we pushed our full-backs a little bit higher so that we could draw their full-backs out, because we could do that, we could overload a little bit their centre-halves and the players did very well tactically to adapt to the instructions at half-time.”

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