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Cape Town - SuperSport United coach Kaitano Tembo was pleased with his side's work without the ball in their 2-1 victory over Kaizer Chiefs on Saturday evening.
The Amakhosi fell to their second league defeat of the season and their lead cut to four points after Sundowns won later on Saturday evening.
SuperSport have been a bogey team for Chiefs for some time now and repeated the trend with goals from lethal strike duo Bradley Grobler and Thamsanwqa Gabuza on the night.
And Tembo was delighted with his side's pressing and counter-attacking play.
“To be honest, it wasn’t pretty. But you know we had to do what we had to do and today we had to play more without the ball,” Tembo told SuperSport TV.
“Our pressing was very good and we were very dangerous on the break because we know their defence don’t like to be turned.
“Also, on the sides we took advantage of the sides as well. Their full-backs like going forward so we had to go in there with speed as you can see with the first goal we scored even the second goal from the cross.
“I think we managed the game very well. We didn’t open it up because if you open it up, then you give them especially their big strikers like Castro and Nurkovic the opportunity to play long balls so that they can play off the second ball but we didn’t give them that today,” he said.
Tembo also revealed why he took Sipho Mbule off at halftime.
“Today wasn’t Sipho Mbule’s game because we wanted to play him a little bit high up and play off Bradley," said the Matsatsantsa mentor.
"But he is not that kind of player that’s why we had to sacrifice him.
“It was a tactical decision. We had to bring in Gabuza. We knew that we will always have Gabuza in the bag pocket that’s why he was on the bench so that he can change the dimension of our attack."
- TEAMTalk
