Stellenbosch FC coach Steve Barker has urged his side to beat Swallows FC in their DStv Premiership clash at the Danie Craven Stadium on Wednesday and reach their pre-season goal of 30 points in the campaign.
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A draw would be enough to do that as Stellenbosch sit in third place on the log, but Barker says they must go for full points against the struggling Birds having been dumped out of the Nedbank Cup on Friday by Baroka FC.
“We had hoped to have a good cup run this season, but the Nedbank Cup has eluded us again,” Barker said. “I thought the performance was good enough to warrant a positive result, however in football you have to put the ball in the back of net.
“When you don’t do that, you open yourself up for the opposition to take advantage and they did that with basically the only chance they had in the whole game. And it was from our own error.
“It is a short turnaround, so it is important for us to refocus on the league, which is our bread and butter, and we want to get ourselves into a strong position on the log.
“It is important we finish the rest of the league season confidently and with belief that we can maintain the position we are in. But we have to start creating and scoring more of our chances, having only score 18 goals in 18 matches in an area we need to improve on.
“There is no easy game in the DStv Premiership, you have to put in a performance. It is a key game for us, we would like to get past the 30-point mark on Wednesday.”
Thirty points is usually seen as safety from relegation in the Premiership, with 40 almost always enough for a top eight place. But with Stellies currently in third position, Barker admits they should be looking for a CAF qualification place too. “Our initial objective was to get to 30 points as quicky as possible. We have the chance to get there and still have 33 points to play for thereafter. Then we would reset our targets.
“We would be highly disappointed to not finish in the top eight, which is around the 40-point mark. We have shown as a squad that we have ambitions to do much better than that.”