Tinkler in foul mood after late equaliser for SuperSport

Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler was fuming after his side gave up a last gasp equaliser in Wednesday’s DStv Premiership clash against SuperSport United.

The 1-1 draw at the Cape Town Stadium kept Cape Town City in second place in the league standings, but still only ahead of SuperSport United on goal difference.

City led when Khanyisa Mayo scored a breakaway goal soon after halftime but then Lyle Lakay equalised from a freekick five minutes into stoppage time.

“That goal puts me in a foul mood, because it's literally the last kick of the game. Let’s call it a six pointer, so we’ve thrown away five points. You know, we could have created a small little gap between ourselves and them (SuperSport) and potentially Stellenbosch,” said Tinkler in reaction to the result.

“That hurts we need to be truthful and say we didn't perform well enough. Simply not good enough. Collectively, way too many errors, both on the ball and off the ball. The foul that we gave away that lead to the goal was an unnecessary foul. The young boy (Ramazani Tshimanga) will learn. The unfortunate reality is that youngsters are going to make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are going to be costly.

“I feel for Rama, because he knows he made a mistake going out there and giving away the foul, there was no need to do that. But that's one person. Then the free kick comes in and who's dealing with that?” asked the City coach of his other players.

He said giving away several freekicks and corners near the end of the game was playing to the strengths of their opponents.

“We were playing straight into their hands because that that is their strength, the set pieces because they have the quality to hurt you. So if you start adding up, set piece after the piece that leads to the final set piece from where they get the equaliser, then you understand because their per centage of scoring from set pieces is very high.

“We had to try and avoid that but some of the youngsters still don't know, they've still got to learn that but that's part of growing.”

Tinkler said he had tried to change his side’s approach to the game to end a run of six matches without success against SuperSport.

“We had to make certain changes in terms of how we play against them because we've tried to be a possession-based team against them in the last five games and came away with nothing. I made a couple of changes in terms of our setup, in terms of our organisation, in terms of our formation.

“We had nothing to lose, let's see if it worked and I think potentially the situations we created did work. We created two or three great chances to score but we were not able to create more often. That fina pass, the decision making wasn't there,” he added.