Siwelele coach Lehlohonolo Seema says his team will play for their lives in their remaining league games after they were humbled 2-0 by AmaZulu at the Moses Mabhida Stadium at the weekend.
Athini Maqokola’s brace sank Siwelele, who had won two of their last three league games with a draw. The defeat was their seventh in the league this season, leaving them just five points away from relegation.
We will continue to fight. We know that in each and every game we will be playing for our lives.
— Lehlohonolo Seema , Siwelele coach
Seema told his players to quickly forget their defeat.
“We are going to go back and work hard again,” he said.
“We will continue to fight. We know that in each and every game we will be playing for our lives [to avoid relegation].
“[The defeat by AmaZulu] is one game that we’d like to forget as quickly as possible because I don’t think we applied ourselves very well.
“We lost because of our own doing. I think in the first 15, 20 minutes we should have scored one or two goals … even three. That’s where we lost it because the players started to think that it was going to be an easy game,” Seema said.
Siwelele’s next league game is against Chippa United at home on Saturday (4pm). Seema appears to be targeting a win against struggling Chilli Boys, banking on their fairly solid home record, having won three of their six league games in their backyard against two defeats and a draw.
“Our next game is at home, and we’ve proven to be a very difficult team at home with our supporters who are our heartbeat,” he said.
Meanwhile, AmaZulu coach Arthur Zwane felt that the team’s two weeks of inactivity due to the recent Fifa break were evident in the early stages of the match and suggested that Siwelele dominated them until they grew into the game.
“I think we started very shaky … you could see that we hadn’t played in two weeks. Obviously, when you don’t get tested, you don’t get ready for games like this. We were still disciplined in defence and our structure didn’t allow them to penetrate us,” he said.
Sowetan