Zwane gutted with his ‘sleeping’ players after AmaZulu loss to Pirates

AmaZulu coach Arthur Zwane was left with an egg on his face after his team allowed Relebohile Mofokeng to score what he felt was an easy goal.

The 21-year-old Bafana Bafana star was in an inspired form as he scored and forced an own goal on Tuesday night at the Moses Mabhida Stadium to help Orlando Pirates beat Usuthu 2-0.

Bucs’ victory ensured they went top of the table with 35 points from 15 games to further sustain their hope of beating Mamelodi Sundowns to the Premier Soccer League crown. Masandawana have won the last eight editions in a row while Pirates’ last triumph came more than a decade ago.

Former Kaizer Chiefs coach believes his defenders were slow in dealing with the danger, allowing the versatile attacker to head the ball in the back of the net to help teh Soweto giants push for the crown.

He was caught sleeping

“Like I said, I think we were a little bit sluggish in the first 20-25 minutes and we allowed them to shape the ball inside the box and to me Rele is not one of the best headers of the ball and unfortunately, we couldn’t defend that one. But also, Nkosi should’ve been inside, he was outside,” Zwane told the media.

“He should’ve been goal-side to defend, he was definitely going to get the ball first before Rele but I think he was caught sleeping there a little bit and I think from there they slowed the game down, the way they controlled and we had moments where it was open for us to hurt them.

“But from our side wrong selection of pass to get the right player to hurt them. It’s one of those, like I said we played against a quality side, but they also had a problem when we made changes because we had to change the structure a little bit.

“Instead of pressing from in to out we started pressing from out to in and targeting the number six and we got moments where one I think Athini if he just managed to poke the ball it was going straight to the keeper and unfortunately, he missed the ball completely. It’s one of those things, but I’m proud of the boys,” Zwane concluded..