Chippa must dust themselves off and soldier on — Seema

Chippa United soccer coach Lehlohonolo Seema says there is no time to dwell over Friday’s Absa Premiership defeat to Cape Town City.

The 40-year-old Lesotho-born mentor said the team’s focus was now firmly fixed on their next fixture against Highlands Park.

Chippa host the Lions of the North at Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg on Tuesday (3.30pm).

“We are waiting for Highlands Park, which will be another tough one, but we will prepare well and work on the recovery of the guys,” Seema said.

“We are looking forward to the next match because we had to get tested to see how far we are.”

Friday’s 1-0 loss against City saw the Chilli Boys get sucked closer towards the relegation zone. 

The Port Elizabeth side are now faced with the daunting task of escaping the chop as they are only three points ahead of Polokwane City, who are second-last on the table in the relegation playoff spot.

Seema said his team lacked self-confidence against Cape Town City. 

“You can see that the guys have been out for long, but there were a lot of positives that I can take into our next game.

“They [City] were building from the back, which we rectified after halftime by putting a lot of pressure on them in their own half.

“This is a process and the results won’t come in one game.

“But I must compliment the players because they battled out there and they fought until the last minute. 

“I am not disappointed with the guys’ efforts.

“It’s just that we gave them a soft goal from our own throw-in and those are the things we should work on. 

“If we can’t win it, we must at least get a draw and not give away soft goals like that. 

“The red card did not help us but the guys fought well under the circumstances.

“It’s a work in progress and, of course, we have seen where we need to improve. 

“On the day I believe we lost a lot of possession easily and you cannot do that when you are not positioned in a good space.”

Meanwhile, Mamelodi Sundowns are struggling to find rhythm, coach Pitso Mosimane has admitted after being held to a second consecutive draw [1-1] against Highlands Park on Friday.

Mosimane said his players’ conditioning was not the problem‚ so much as a loss of rhythm due to the long period of inactivity.

“There’s no challenge — we don’t complain about playing games back-to-back,” he said when asked about a programme that will see Downs play their fourth match in 10 days against Cape Town City at Loftus Versfeld on Monday.

“The challenge is the long layoff of four months without proper training‚ et cetera.

“The first two weeks back we trained in small groups and to get the rhythm that we are always used to or want‚ it’s not coming up as easily as it’s supposed to. 

“And all you can do is to try and revive the team and try and encourage the players to play a little bit more when you don’t get it easy.

“When you don’t have Sibusiso Vilakazi and Themba Zwane and Gaston Sirino [as Sundowns have in the past week’s matches] on the pitch it’s difficult.”

— HeraldLIVE, additional reporting by Marc Strydom