CAPE TOWN – Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler has praised team effort in their DStv Premiership 2-0 victory over Royal AM at DHL Stadium on Friday night.
Goals from Jaeden Rhodes and Thabo Nodada saw the Citizens comfortably sit in third position, just two points behind the log leaders Mamelodi Sundowns.
Tinkler’s charges collected 15 points in their last five matches in the campaign.
Tinkler admitted playing Royal AM two days after their last fixture against Chippa United wasn’t going to be easy.
“I think this was going to be a difficult match, mainly due to the fact that we played three days ago, played on Tuesday, and this came very fast after that game,” said Tinkler.
“So planning and preparation and that type of thing had to be more video than anything else. Watching them, they’ve always been very much a tiki-taka team, especially in that final third with a lot of rotation and movement.
“At times you don’t know what position they’re actually playing. Thabo Matlaba floats everywhere, and the front four rotate.
“So explaining that to the players was extremely important and I thought, as much as Darren [Keet] had to make two or three good saves, I thought defensively today we were quite solid.”
Tinkler believes they’re in a good position but not worried about how many points difference is between them and the log leaders.
“We’re two points behind Sundowns now, but they’ve still got games in hand, but it’s games in hand. There’s no guarantee that they’re going to collect three, three, three. That’s the way I judge it,” he said.
“Even when I was at Maritzburg [United], that first season, I wasn’t looking, oh, how do I get to 12th or 13th?
No, I’m just looking at who’s in front of me. Can I close that gap between myself and who’s in front of me? And that’s the way I’ll continue doing it.”
