Cape Town City motivated to tackle Orlando Pirates, says coach Eric Tinkler

Cape Town - This season has been an underwhelming one so far for Cape Town City across all competitions.

They would have been hoping for a solid top eight finish as well as to embark on deep runs in the cup competitions on offer.

While they narrowly lost the MTN 8 final on penalties to Sundowns, they enter Wednesday’s Premiership game against Orlando Pirates in ninth and were eliminated from the Nedbank Cup two weeks ago by Royal AM.

Should City win their game against Pirates, they will break into the top eight on the log.

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Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler said: “Everybody is motivated to play against Orlando Pirates and try to collect some valuable points at this stage of the season.

“We are going to a big league fixture away from home. After the break it was important for us to have started well in the league, collecting maximum points against Golden Arrows which was a positive.”

Tinkler’s charges will be against a confident Sea Robbers side who most recently inflicted an impressive 6-2 away defeat upon Royal Leopards in the African Confederation Cup last weekend.

“We know it’s not going to be easy against Pirates. They are a team that is looking to ensure that they finish in the top four to qualify for the Caf competitions again. We’ve set our own targets and we need to go there and compete,” he said.

Along with Maritzburg United, Cape Town City were one of the most active teams during the mid-season transfer period, seeing a number of high-profile departures and new recruits joining the club.

The club’s attack suffered a blow during the transfer period as Fagrie Lakay left to join Egyptian club Pyramids FC while Bradley Ralani linked up with Mamelodi Sundowns.

In order to fill the void that was created by the departure of the Western Cape club’s former key duo, they roped in Brice Ambina from Renaissance FC, striker Mogamat May from Hanover Park, Kajally Drammeh and Darwin Gonzales.

While he has yet to score his first goal for the club, the Venezuela international Gonzalez showed some positive touches on the ball in his club’s recent 1-0 win over Golden Arrows.

Next match: Via Orlando 👋

City face the Bucs on Wednesday! ⚽️

🏆 #DStvPrem
🆚 Orlando Pirates
📆 2 March
⌚️ 17H30
📺 Televised SS2
🏟️ Orlando Stadium#iamCityFC pic.twitter.com/9G7LS9i2xr

— Cape Town City FC (@CapeTownCityFC) February 28, 2022

Tinkler said that the new recruits are gelling well.

“We’ve had a few days extra to work with some of the new players and I think they all integrated extremely well,” said Tinkler.

@eshlinv