Kaizer Chiefs head coach Cavin Johnson believes their cautious approach of playing deeper in the second half invited the subsequent result of Mamelodi Sundowns netting five times afterwards.
The game went into halftime in a goalless stalemate before a scintillating second-half performance from Sundowns earned them a deserved 5-1 victory at the FNB Stadium.
Centre-back Given Msimango was sent off in the 19th minute, but Chiefs weathered the storm throughout the entire first half.
“It’s hard to give thoughts now, but firstly congratulations to Sundowns; they won the league today. I think we, as Kaizer Chiefs, had a good first half until we got the red card. Coming into the second half, we held them for a long time in the first half where they really didn’t do us anything.
“But then, because of the one man down, I thought later in the game in the second half, we lost a little bit of legs. We tried to do it, but I thought late in the second half, we dropped a little bit too deep. We tried to push the players up, and quality players found the holes and scored the goals. So, what can we do?
“We have to go back and work. We still have four games left to play, and we have to play the best we can. We cannot come like this; closer to the end of the game, we don’t have the energy or the willpower to maintain the way we played in the first half,” Johnson told SuperSport TV.
Yusuf Maart played the majority of the game in an unusual right-back role after Msimango’s red card. Johnson says the defensive approach in the second half was not a direct instruction from the coaching staff.
“We thought he had done well in all the moments after that before halftime. I thought he did very well. Our back four was very solid, except that later in the second half, they started dropping, and that was the wrong thing to do because we were forcing them to go forward. They didn’t go forward, but we have to live to work another day,” Johnson added.
With four league rounds remaining, Johnson insisted they must fight to secure a top-eight finish.
“We have to play for that. Chiefs have to play for that. They know we have to play for that. We have to get there. It’s one of the things we have to maintain in order to start the following season on a high note,” he concluded.
