Ajax Cape Town are going to have to lift their game and raise their intensity levels several notches if they are to ensure their mini tour up north does not end pointless.
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Anthony McLennan
Ajax Cape Town are going to have to lift their game and raise their intensity levels several notches if they are to ensure their mini tour up north does not end pointless.
After back-to-back wins in the league and cup, Ajax had gone into their clash with log leaders Kaizer Chiefs at the FNB Stadium on Wednesday night in an optimistic mood.
But a 1-0 defeat to a below-par AmaKhosi side has left coach Roger De Sa with quite a bit of work to do ahead of Saturday evening’s showdown with SuperSport United at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane.
It wasn’t that the Urban Warriors were particularly wasteful in front of goal against Chiefs, as has been their problem throughout the season.
The bigger issue was that they barely managed to create any clear-cut opportunities; their build-up play ponderous and lacking a cutting edge.
“We never got going,” admitted De Sa after the Chiefs game. “I thought we had quite a lot of possession, but the possession didn’t mean anything. Rushed decisions, trying to shoot from 40-metres.
“We froze a bit, I don’t think we were fluent, our passing all-round was poor. Our crosses were poor, our shooting was bad. We were lethargic, we were second to every ball.
“We were disappointing all-round. I don’t think we were crisp in our passing, our final pass was poor, and our decision-making in the final third was terrible. Our finalisation was poor, I think we had 11 or 12 shots at goal and never hit the goal once, the goalkeeper never made a save, except from Nathan Paulse’s headers.
“That’s disappointing on our side. I think we missed a hell of an opportunity to get something out of our match in Joburg. But we only have ourselves to blame, and hopefully we’ll learn from it and move on and get better.
“There is a lot to work on, a lot to improve on. But there are a lot of young boys [in the Ajax team] who will get better,” he said.
Things are certainly not going to get any easier when Ajax meet with former Urban Warriors coach Gordon Igesund’s SuperSport United side in the Limpopo Province.
SuperSport may have lost 5-2 to bottom side AmaZulu in their most recent action, but as De Sa says: “You can’t read too much into their last defeat”.
“I’m sure they will be revved up and Gordon will have them fired up to play us. But we have to just knuckle down and go for it.
“We have got a chance to redeem ourselves on Saturday and we’ve got to do a lot better against SuperSport, who could be a lot tougher [than Chiefs].”
As things stand on the table right now, Ajax are in sixth position. SuperSport, captained by former Ajax defender Clayton Daniels, are eighth, with just one point separating the two clubs.
It’s however the Pretoria outfit who boast the better record of late, having taken 10 of the last available 15 points in the league, Ajax having only claimed five points from their last five Premiership encounters.
The two sides met as recently as December, when a tight first-round league affair ended in a 0-0 draw in the Mother City.
SuperSport’s two mid-season arrivals, strikers Jeremy Brockie and Kingston Nkhatha, have both been scoring freely and are full of confidence. Add the likes of Dove Wome, Thuso Phala and David Mathebula to the mix, and it could be a tough evening for the young Ajax rearguard.
In this respect, De Sa may just look at bringing experienced centre-back Dominic Isaacs into the starting XI.
With the two games coming within three days of each other, the Ajax boss is certainly likely to make several changes to keep his side fresh. With an almost fully-fit squad, he does at least have options, and could be looking to give game-time to players such as Thabiso Nkoana and Bantu Mzwakali as he looks for more penetration and pace in attack, while the fit-again Granwald Scott could be the man to bring some composure to the centre of the park.
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