EAST LONDON – Chippa United coach Clinton Larsen rued the missed chances after his team lost their first Premiership match under his guidance.
SuperSport United eked out a 1-0 win at a nearly packed Sisa Dukashe Stadium at the weekend.
Larsen could not play some of his trusted soldiers like Kurt Lentjies and Andile Mbenyane because of injury and suspension.
The Port Elizabeth-based team desperately needed a victory on Sunday to move away from the relegation zone.
Chippa United played in patches and because of that, they could not create many clear chances in the game against Matsatsantsa a Pitori – but there were few great opportunities that were superbly dealt with by the in-form Ronwen Williams.
Even though his team played decent football after the introduction of the likes of Mark Mayambela and Rhulani Manzini in the second stanza, Larsen felt they should have gone into the break with at least a goal.
“About five or six weeks ago, I said to the team we going to lose at some point. For me now, it’s character we need to show to bounce back after the defeat. I think that’s what makes a good team.
“I thought in the first half in particular, first 20 minutes; we gave them too much space. We agreed before the game that we needed to impose ourselves – it’s our home game, home ground. Take the game to them, and it wasn’t the case.
“We were a little bit flat for 20 minutes – but the last 20 minutes, we really took the game to them. We could have come to the break 2-1 up.
“We were little bit unfortunate not to come to the break at least into the lead because we had two big chances that Ronwen (Williams) kept them in the game, but in saying so, in the second half, there was only one team,” said Larsen after the game.
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When good results are not coming, club owner Siviwe ‘Chippa’ Mpengesi is known as a man who does not think twice about always firing coaches.
But former Golden Arrows mentor Larsen is not panicking at all, because he believes that the team have improved a lot on his watch.
“No, we can’t panic because... forget where we were, five weeks ago. We were panicking then. You know we’ve got eight points from then, I feel it’s good few weeks ago we got our small targets we have sets ourselves after beating Maritzburg United.
“We have 23 games left to play, and if we collect five points every three games we play, we will have 35 points at the end of the season.
📅 Sunday, 10 March 2019
🏟️ Thohoyandou Stadium
🕞 Kick Off 15:30
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— Chippa United FC (@ChippaUnitedFC) March 4, 2019
“We have currently collected eight points from five games. We have one game to go to get to that target, and I still believe we are going to achieve that target.
“At the moment we on target to achieving that with the result against Black Leopards which is going to be difficult,” concluded Larsen.
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