Defeated Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler said he would have to assess his selection decisions after putting out a youthful side against Mamelodi Sundowns on Wednesday and seeing his youngster handed a 3-0 defeat in their Betway Premiership clash.
Tinkler made seven changes to the side that drew with Magesi on Sunday, saying he was looking for youthful energy against the champions, who City upset 1-0 away from home in the final fixture of the last league season.
But the introduction of three 21-year-olds and two 22-year-olds did not produced the desired result.
“I think ultimately, we lost to a better team, a strong team that came out from Sundowns, very offensive, very attacking,” said Tinkler in his analysis of what went wrong at Loftus Versfeld.
“We didn't really play to our strengths. When I look at the buildup, Sundowns pressing us, we didn't manage to get out of the buildup. It was too easy for them to press us. We gave a ball away cheaply. Especially against the team like Sundowns, if you give it away cheaply, you'll get punished,” he added.
Tinkler was not happy with his own side’s buildup.
“The options available to us in the buildup were very, very poor. If we did get out of it, we needed to show a lot more control once we got in the creation phase, but we opted to play the long ball, and then obviously it just came back at us. Our possession, our ball control, our build up played into the hands of Sundowns.”
He said an ineffective pressing game ultimately proved their undoing.
“We spoke about how we want to press them, but the application of that press wasn't good enough. When you don't apply yourself correctly, you will get punished. And that's exactly what happened.
"You've got to be brave enough to push players forward in in terms of being able to at least match them through the middle. And we didn't do that.
“(Lucas) Ribeiro found the pockets very, very easily. And when he finds those pockets very easily, he hurts you.”
The Brazilian striker got one goal to lift his league tally for the season to four while Peter Shalulile scored the other two.
“I thought in the second half, with the changes we made, we showed a little bit more control. We managed to come out a little bit better in the buildup. But again, you know, the third goal, you're not matching them in terms of numbers in the press, and they get out of the press too easy,” Tinkler added.
“Maybe I asked too much. Obviously, I'll first look at myself. It’s disappointing to lose the way we've lost. But yeah, we got another big game coming up on the weekend, so we need to start focusing on that.”
City are away to Richards Bay in Umlazi on Saturday in the opening match of this weekend’s Carling Knockout quarterfinals (live on SuperSport).