Chippa United coach Eric Tinkler has vowed not to give Mamelodi Sundowns room to manoeuvre when the teams clash in an Absa Premiership match at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium in East London on Saturday.
Tinkler wants to bag between 17 and 18 points before the end of the first half of the season, but the coach says to achieve that Chippa need to start winning matches.
A win against the former Caf and current PSL champions could be just what the Chilli Boys need to turn their fortunes around in the league.
They are on eight points off as many matches. That leaves Tinkler nine or 10 points short of his target.
“All the games are important and by the time we get to 15 games played we are hoping the points are going to be
17 or 18, somewhere there,” Tinkler said.
“So, what’s important is to start winning irrespective of who the opposition is, be it Sundowns or Kaizer Chiefs, who we are playing immediately after this match.
“We need to collect points in every single game that we play and hopefully climb that table,” he said.
“That is the main objective.
“We don’t want to find ourselves come Christmas lying at the bottom and going on the mini-break still having all the pressure on our shoulders.
“So, we want to make sure that when we go to that December break there is no pressure and everybody can enjoy the little break that they will have and come back refreshed to start the second round of the league.”
But the Brazilians have not lost a game so far in the league this season and they will want to leave Buffalo City with that record intact.
Tinkler is aware that the match will not be an easy one, but he says he has a few tricks up his sleeve.
“You are always looking to find the weakness that they potentially have. I have watched all their recent games and from that we have analysed them and we have come up with a plan that could potentially get us the result,” he said.
“There is a lot of quality in Sundowns and they are more than capable of adapting their game.
“So, we need to be prepared. “Obviously we want to take the game to them.
“It’s our home game. We are not going to sit back and try to play on the counter.
“We want to take the game to them, we want to go at them and we want to play attractive football.
“What we need to do is to ensure that we perform the way we performed in the second half against Orlando Pirates.”
Tinkler that said his team’s first-half performance against Pirates in the Telkom Knockout Competition – they were beaten 1-0 – was sub-standard.
However, there were positives to take from the match, the coach said.
“In the second half I think we dominated against Pirates.
“We created a lot of chances and probably deserved to get at least a point out of the game.
“There were many positives we could take from the game so we need to take that into the game against Sundowns,” Tinkler said.