De Sa wants better finishing from Ajax
Ajax Cape Town’s tumble down the PSL standings continued unabated when they lost 1-0 to Mpumalanga Black Aces in Nelspruit on Saturday night.
|||Ajax Cape Town’s tumble down the PSL standings continued unabated when they lost 1-0 to Mpumalanga Black Aces in Nelspruit on Saturday night.
While the game was studded with some good moments, but marred by some diabolical finishing from both teams, it ended with the bizarre announcement afterwards, from Aces coach Muhsin Ertugral, that he was “dedicating the victory to John Comitis”.
The declaration was an obvious reference to which side of the fence Ertugral was sitting on in the feud between the Comitis brothers and the current Ajax owners, the Efstathiou brothers.
Turkish coach Ertugral has had three spells at Ajax and has inside knowledge of the happenings at the Cape club.
The Comitis and Efstathiou families jointly owned Ajax before, but after a fall-out, there were many boardroom fights.
The Comitis brothers decided, for the good of the club, to sell their shares in July 2013, allowing the Efstathious to take over.
In putting one over his former club in Nelspruit on Saturday, and in saluting Comitis for the win, Ertugral was probably getting in a dig or two.
“The win means a lot,” said the Aces coach.
“But if I look at the way we want to play football, it wasn’t good enough… but we’ll take the three points. I thought both teams had chances, but we were going backwards too much.
“Ajax are a fantastic team and they have really good youngsters. They should certainly have scored on quite a few occasions. They were on the front foot, we were on the back foot.”
Since winning the MTN8 competition in September, it has been a tale of woe for Ajax. They’ve played seven times, losing five and drawing two. They’ve forgotten how to win.
But it’s not a case of the Cape side playing poorly, they just cannot score goals.
On Saturday night, they squandered some of the easiest opportunities you are likely to see.
“We can’t say that it’s been a bad year,” said Ajax coach Roger de Sa. “We’ve been in two Cup finals and finished fifth in the PSL last season.
“It’s just that the latter half of the (year), it’s gone a bit sour.
“On Saturday, the performance wasn’t bad. It was the finishing that let us down.
“I thought we gave as good as we got, we had numerous chances, and we could probably have snatched the result.
“But the finishing has got to be better… we create so many chances. It’s something we are always working on, and it’s something we will continue to work on.”
Ajax have now slid to fourth-from-bottom on the PSL standings.
It’s a log position that will concern De Sa – and, needless to say, will guarantee that soul-searching rather than festive cheer is on the menu this Christmas.
rodney.reiners@inl.co.za
@Reinerss11