Chippa’s 1-1 draw felt like defeat – Heric

Chippa United’s 1-1 draw against struggling Ajax Cape Town in their Absa Premiership fixture at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth on Sunday felt like a defeat, coach Vladislav Heric said.

A 90th-minute goal from Ajax Krahire Zakri torpedoed the Chilli Boys’ chances of clinching their second consecutive win after their inspiring 3-0 victory over Kaizer Chiefs the week before.

The last time the Port Elizabeth-based side banked three points at home was when they beat Amakhosi 1-0 in December.

The Serbian-born coach said giving points away at home was like a kick in the gut.

“This feels like defeat to me because at home we can not accommodate one point,” Heric said.

“We cannot give points away to opponents. That is not on. We must show better football at home.

“I will ask my players in the future to respect their home and to find more energy.

“The team has improved generally. We are creating more chances now. I do believe that the players believe in themselves and in the game plan we have put together. So, all of this improvement can take us somewhere.”

But the former Bay United mentor said his players were sluggish during the first stanza.

“The game did not start well for us, because we had too many back passes. We gave them too much time to think how they can sort out our game plan out and how they can match us in certain areas.

“From the beginning it was very difficult. We were a little bit lethargic in the first half, although we created two or three chances.

“In the second half, we scored that goal and the team turned into another mode that we had planned for. That was to catch them on [the] counter, score two or three goals and conclude the game.

“But that never happened. We created a couple of chances. We were good on counters and we beat them on the flanks.

“Mark Mayambela was brilliant there but unfortunately we had no proper moment of the ball in the net.”

Heric said he would give his players some time off to get a proper rest so that he could have fresh legs for their next two matches against Bloemfontein Celtic (away) and SuperSport United (East London).

“The players had not recovered properly from their win over Chiefs. On Wednesday and Thursday, I had to cut the last half-an-hour from the training.

“So, I will rest them now and try to prepare for Bloemfontein Celtic. I will try to get three points there because we lost two points on Sunday.”