Long ball eating its own children? Tinkler fumes at ‘ugly’ Polokwane after first defeat

Sekhukhune United coach Eric Tinkler reveled in his side’s ability to play long balls and beat Kaizer Chiefs recently but he is now fuming after being served the same dose.

Tinkler saw his team’s unbeaten start to the season come to an end when they lost 1-0 to Polokwane City in the Limpopo derby on Saturday thanks to Mokibelo Ramabu’s goal.

It was a defeat that came after the hosts frustrated Babina Noko, who looked ill-prepared for the long balls that were launched into their box, leaving Tinkler unimpressed.

While he admits his team failed to follow instructions and allowed their opponents to take all three points, the former Cape Town City coach has hit out at Phuti Mohafe’s team for playing ugly by only relying on long balls.

Tinkler unhappy with ‘not pretty’ Polokwane

“Disappointed how we conceded the goal because we discussed it ahead of the game. This is a team that doesn’t play pretty football,” Tinkler said as per iDiski Times.

“They play it long, there’s no build-up, there’s no creation phase, there’s no final phase. It’s just ball in the box and if you don’t win the second balls, then you’re going to struggle. And that’s how they got their goal and their only opportunity, really for 90 minutes. Like the Chippa [United] game we struggled in the final third finding solutions.

“We needed to find solutions in the final third. We needed more creativity. We lacked the finer details in the chances that we created. We needed to create more chances the way they played but we didn’t.”

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Tinkler admits it is a tactic his team must work to contain as rivals have now realised how best to beat them going forward.

“We didn’t have that creativity and that finesse and that eagerness that you need in that final third, that final pass just wasn’t there,” he added.

“Now this is obvious something that we need to work on in all our upcoming games because a lot of teams now are obviously going to look to play against us in a low block and we’ve got to find ways to break that low block now.”

Tinkler enjoyed a victory courtesy of long balls over one week ago when Sekhukhune frustrated Chiefs by playing it long to Bradley Grobler, who scored a brace and created the third goal in their 3-1 victory, which ended Amakhosi’s unbeaten start to the season on September 16.