Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler was pleased to get the three points in a difficult DStv Premiership match against Marumo Gallants on Saturday after Thabo Nodada scored a late winner.
Nodada’s 89th-minute strike saw City pick up the three points and move up to fifth on the table.
Tinkler said it was a tough game against Dan Malesela’s team, but he felt as the game wore on, Gallants began to fade, while City created their best opportunities.
“I always knew this game was going to be a very, very difficult game,” Tinkler said after the match.
“Because Marumo Gallants, the brand of football that they play is very much a possession-based football team.
“They’re a team that is difficult to try and win the ball off, they rotate the ball very, very well. They have the trio in the midfield of (Celimpilo) Ngema and (Phillip) Ndlondlo, and Miguel Timm, that have a lot of movement and creativity on the ball.
“And they play this little give and go’s, little give and goES. But possession stats don’t always tell you you’re going to win the game, you can win all the possession in the world, but it’s all about how many chances you create and how many goals you score.
“And in the first half, they had one half-chance that Hugo Marques had to come out. And other than that, they didn’t really create anything.
“But we didn’t press them the way we had planned. Our transitional football in the first half was not brilliant in that first period, although we did create one or two half-chances against them.
“But as I said, our first half was not brilliant, made one or two tactical changes at halftime, in terms of the formation, we started immediately the second half very, very well. We got on top of them, we were winning the ball more often.
“They didn’t have as much possession, when they did we managed to close them down nice and early.
“And you could see because of the intensity of the game, they started to fade and you could feel that the chances would come and we create literally four great chances right at the death.
“And fortunately one of those chances ends up as a goal through Thabo Nodada, and I think overall I think we deserved the result.”
