Orlando Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro was not happy with his team’s performance despite a convincing 4-2 win over Royal AM in the DStv Premiership on Tuesday night.
At times during the game, Pirates looked a world apart from Royal AM, and managed to run a 3-0 lead inside 35 minutes.
The teams went in the break with the score at 3-1, but in reality, Pirates could have led 5-0, such was their dominance.
Riveiro’s men took the foot off the pedal, somewhat, in the second half, and Royal AM thought they even had a chance to snatch a point when Mxolisi Macuphu made it 3-2 with two minutes of regular time left.
Bandile Shandu was able to ease the Buccaneers’ worries deep into stoppage time to confirm the points.
Riveiro, though, was upset that they could not keep their first half dominance in the second 45 minutes.
“I think we should’ve finished the game early, we had many, many opportunities to finish the opponents’ hopes,” the Spaniard said in a post match interview on SuperSport.
“But we keep the game open, almost until the last minute. A bit crazy 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. Today, 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.”
Pirates began the season with a shock loss to Stellenbosch FC on the weekend, but after bagging their first three points of the new campaign, they will be confident to build on as they look to challenge Mamelodi Sundowns.
IOL Sport