Lamontville Golden Arrows coach Manqoba Mngqithi found it difficult to stomach scoring three goals on the road and still ending on the losing side as his team lost a seven-goal thriller at Stellenbosch on Wednesday.
Arrows came back three times at the Athlone Stadium, scoring superb goals, but lost 4-3 and ended a three-match winning streak as they dropped to ninth in the Betway Premiership standings.
“Overall, it was very good football for spectators. I can tell you this is what I would come to watch a football match for. But for us as coaches, it says a lot when you concede four goals and the way we conceded,” Mngqithi said.
“The positive is the fact that we managed to score three very beautiful and very difficult goals to score, but we go home with nothing. That’s hard to take.”
Mngqithi said Arrows had started the match slowly. “Stellenbosch put a lot of pressure in the early stages of the game. We anticipated that they wanted to get an early goal in the first 15 minutes, because they know their legs might not last. And they did that.
“But we regrouped, and we showed what we are capable of. We started our passing game, and we created chances and scored.
“But at the same time, we just kept on conceding goals from elementary mistakes. The last three goals were just our own mistakes.”
But Mngqithi said Arrows must still be considered a work in progress. “I’m still very impressed with how the team is coming up. I think the team is growing every match. We are creating good, good opportunities. We are playing to our strength.
“And we were playing against a good team. We can never take that away from Stellenbosch. We know how good they can be, but we were very hopeful that maybe we might have a slight advantage in terms of the legs,” he added.
“So we have to work very hard and try to get ourselves better, but otherwise, I'm impressed with the progress that the team is making.”