During Tuesday night’s scoreless stalemate between Cape Town City and Sekhukhune United at Athlone Stadium, Eric Tinkler lamented his team’s “worst performance of the season” as his squad lamented several wasted opportunities.
Khaniya Mayo, their most proficient goal scorer, was the main offender. Mayo has scored four goals so far this season, but following the match against Sekhukhune, he ought to have at least six.
Mayo should have scored at least one goal in the span of five minutes from two excellent scoring chances.
Unmarked and on the penalty spot, Mayo lost his cool and fired with his stronger left foot high over the crossbar, causing the first to fall at his feet.
Tinkler just left in despair as the opportunity passed her by.
The second was a little trickier. Mayo did well to get beyond the Sekhukhune defence, but once there, he was unable to keep his header on goal.
But only Mayo left his goal-scoring gear in the locker room. Taahir Goedeman, a young midfielder who often stands out for his hard work in the middle of the park, missed a golden opportunity to score his first Dstv Premiership goal in the first half.
Goalkeeper Darren Keet sent a long pass into the Sekhukhune United box, which defender Daniel Cardoso failed to handle well, and the ball was ideally placed for Goedeman, who had a clean shot towards goal.
Badra Ali Sangaré, the goalkeeper for Sekhukhune, did well to go off his line to apply pressure on Goedeman, who pushed the ball wide and against the upright to absolve the visitors of responsibility.
It was by far our poorest performance of the season, Tinkler was quite forward about it. “In the first half, we didn’t play well.
They put a lot of pressure on us. We did not attempt to aid the build-up play.
We had trouble emerging from the building phase because our front three were playing too high.
“However, every time we made a breakthrough, we gave them one or two issues, and we ought to have scored.
Despite how poorly we performed tonight, we still missed three excellent opportunities to end the game.
Overall, we had a really poor performance tonight. We had sluggish passing, sloppy finishing, and a lack of energy.