Despite picking up their first win of the new DStv Premiership campaign, Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro was not pleased with the performance of his team against Royal AM on Wednesday night.
Jose Riveiro said his troops put on a dreadful show in the second half at Orlando Stadium in Soweto as they marched on to a 4-2 win.
The Soweto giants scored three goals in the first half, with Zakhele Lepasa netting a brace and Monnapule Saleng also getting on the score sheet. But Royal AM pulled one back on the stroke of halftime through Sphiwe Cele.
In the second half, Pirates dropped the tempo of the game, with Royal AM showing their attacking abilities. The visitors were finally rewarded in the 88th minute as ex-Bucs striker Mxolisi Macuphu made it 3-2.
However, with the KZN side pushing numbers forward in search of an equaliser, Orlando Pirates scored the fourth goal via Bandile Shandu deep into added time
PIRATES UNHAPPY WITH SECOND-HALF PERFORMANCE
“I think we should’ve finished the game early, we had many, many opportunities to finish the opponents’ hopes,” said Jose Riveiro.
“But we keep the game open, almost until the last minute. A bit crazy in the second half, I didn’t like it. We should’ve controlled the game much better with a 3-1 advantage, but we have to learn also from these games.
“It happens many times in this league in the second half that the game is broken and is going side to side, we need to impose our tempo in that moment.
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We had the opportunity to do it and we missed a lot of opportunities to score the fourth one and finish the game.
“A good reaction of our opponents as well after the 3-0, so they can be proud of their performance also today. To be honest, I think we played much better two days ago than we did against Royal AM.”
Pirates lost 1-0 in their opening game of the season away to Stellenbosch FC at the weekend.